


Two of Spades

by kleiner_teufel



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking to Cope, Emotional Constipation, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, Language & Blasphemy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Really Cheating, PTSD in the background, Period-Typical Homophobia, Resolved Sexual Tension, Self-Acceptance, Sort of cheating?, Trevor has issues, Unofficial Sequel, What-If, post netflix season 2, some Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-10-10 04:57:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17419505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleiner_teufel/pseuds/kleiner_teufel
Summary: Trevor’s been in a relationship with Sypha for almost one year and he thinks she is a blessing - but maybe he’s born to be cursed.Despite Isaac and Hector’s looming menace, the truth is that nothing scares him as deeply as his own desires.





	1. Walking wet dream

**Author's Note:**

> I struggled a little with the tags. Just to be clear, the story follows canon up to the end of season two, so it starts off with regular Trevor/Sypha as an implied estabilished relationship. Still, it's tagged M/M because it revolves around Trevor and Adrian's relationship.  
> Thanks a lot to my dear sasu--hime for bearing with me and getting rid of my writing mistakes.

 

Trevor sighed, his body spontaneously relaxing in the loving embrace.

Playful fingers run tantalizingly down his back, following the contour of well-defined muscles and carefully inspecting every ridge, worshipping the raised scars marring his skin. They run down his spine all the way to his ass cheeks, gripping the muscle there and pressing his hips down, _down_ to the blissful warmness of the open thighs spread for him.

The faint hint of nails on his flesh forced a low groan from his throat, his own hands moving against the sheets, finding purchase in long, blond tresses softer than silk. His lover made a little excited sound as he tugged at the locks and gained access to a pair of bruised lips, wet and already parted for him.

They kissed passionately, relishing in the hotness of each other’s mouth, breath mingling.

The coil in the muscles of Trevor’s abdomen tightened dangerously, the toned thighs wrapped tightly around his waist squeezing him close.

Unable to hold down a moan, he shifted his grip to reverently caress one of those endless legs, the skin as pale as snow, smooth and unblemished.

The delicate touch was a silent praise for how well his lover was moving under him, welcoming him and taking him in as though the final purpose of their coupling was to mix together and become one in body and soul.

Trevor pushed himself in a half sitting position, his hungry eyes rooming the perfect body under him without any shame.

His lover’s eyes were closed, the attractive face flushed, head tilted to the side. The pleased little moans coming from that sinful mouth made goosebumps appear on Trevor’s flesh.

His bruising grip on the lean hips relented, open palms travelling upward and sliding to his lover’s lower back, helping the beauty to arch against him.

All that blond hair spread on the mattress truly made for an endearing picture, wild and voluptuous like in a painting.

His lover sighed and called for him, almost sounding breathless. Then the thighs around Trevor's waist started shaking, all the muscles in the body under him flexing and contracting, gripping him so hard - _Jesus he’s either going to choke or to die from the pleasure._

He was so close to coming and yet so far, and it was elated torture.

His lover was breathtaking, writhing in pleasure under him, begging for more. Trevor went for those sweet lips, unable to resist, swallowing down the pleased little sobs accompanying his lover’s high.

They held onto each other, moving together slowly now, the previous desperation partially seated.

Thick blond lashes fluttered and, suddenly, they were eye to eye.

Trevor came.

 

He woke up drenched in sweat, the coarse fabric of the covers twisted at his waist and wrapped around one of his legs.

It took him a handful of seconds to remember where he was and why, vivid images of the dream still lingering in his sleep sloshed brain.

Reality settled in place with the same elegance of a bucket of icy water thrown at his face and, panicking, he immediately twisted to check the portion of mattress behind his shoulders.

He was met with the painfully familiar sight of Sypha’s messy red curls, her relaxed sleeping face half-pressed into the pillow. She was still deep in slumber, out like a light after a long day of study and labour in the camp.

The iron grip of panic on Trevor’s stomach subsided slightly, momentarily replaced by relief of being the only witness of his disprovable night activities. Still, guilt immediately weighed upon him like a ton of bricks.

Feeling incredibly tired despite being awake for minutes, Trevor sighed, stroking his sweaty face with both hands.

He grimaced as his unkempt stubble stung his palms, his fingers lazily massaging his sore lids. He had a faint headache from the bottle of piss-poor wine he drunk alone yesterday after dinner, while sitting around the fire and pretending he was taking care of his weapons.

Taking in a deep breath and moving slowly not to wake Sypha, he untangled his half-naked body from the sheets, seeing with some embarrassment that he had actually found release.

Suppressing a groan, he gritted his teeth so hard it hurt and stood up in his sticky undergarments, feeling the impending need of a wash and the desire to fill his lungs with clean, fresh air.

 

It was very early in the morning, with the first rays of sun peaking above the mountains on the east. No wonder the Speaker settlement still looked deserted and asleep. In his bad luck, Trevor was grateful no one was there to watch his walk of shame.

He tugged the cape he donned closer to his body and stepped out in the midst of the small group of wooden houses, heading down the main path to the forest and the creek that flowed nearby.  

Trevor had helped building most of the camp, months ago, when Sypha and him reunited with her family after some alone traveling. They had decided to settle closeby the rebuilding city of Ploieşti for a while, so that they could be close enough to aid the people and buy basic necessities, but far from the eventual reach of the church.

Trevor walked slowly, enjoying the cool morning breeze. His stomach was crumpled and his head had started pounding, but he tried not to focus on any of those things.

It was the beginning of spring, almost a year after his epic fight against the Lord of Darkness, the battle which earned him a place in legends and folk songs. _The last Belmont son_. Trevor snorted, hugging himself tighter.

Wallachia was rebuilding, the stench of death and desperation saturating the air barely a year ago was gone. People had continued with their lives, doing their best to forget the disgrace befallen upon them because of their misguided sense of justice.

Cities and villages were now starting to thrive again, new cathedrals were built, new priests settled in place. Barely any demon was around, these days. Not that they didn’t exist anymore, that was a foolish thought that Trevor was too cunning to entertain, but without guidance from above they were lost and scattered, a shadow of the powerful army they’ve been under Dracula’s command.

The delicate swashing of water was like a soothing balm for his aching _everything_ and Trevor undressed efficiently, protected by the tall lush trees.

Barefoot and naked as the day he was born, he wandered inside the water - definitely still on the chilly side - and sat in a shallow pool among the rocks.

Goosebumps immediately broke on his skin - it wasn’t the best time of the day for a bath, the sun rays still too weak to really warm up the air - but Trevor didn’t care. He deserved to have his dick frozen for the kind of thoughts and dreams that resided in his head.

Sighing again, his fighting attitude defeated, he started scrubbing his body thoroughly with the bar of soap he brought with himself.

It wasn’t the first time all of this happened. Actually, Trevor had lost count of how many times he had found himself in a similar situation during the last year or so of his life.

The dream he had that night was just a variation of a recurrent one. Unrelenting, it tormented Trevor like a curse, regardless of what Trevor did to avoid it.

He squeezed the bar of soap in his hand, scrubbing the skin of his abdomen with more vigor.

Guilt was starting to chew at his stomach yet again and Trevor knew from experience there was nothing he could do to will the feeling away.

He was in a relationship.

Or so he thought, since Sypha was absolutely coherent in choosing his company every single day, even in those days when Trevor had troubles choosing himself.

Sypha gave herself to him willingly, gave him everything she could possibly give and called him _love_. Nobody had ever called Trevor like that since the day his whole family was burned at the stake, and he was too young and spoiled to understand the value of that word back then.

He was beyond grateful for Sypha’s presence by his side. She was a walking flame, fierce, smart and capable. She was also very empathetic, understanding and patient with Trevor and his many flaws, always waiting for him and never rubbing it in his face when he fell short on her expectations. Additionally, and it was said objectively, she was honestly a good looking young woman, with a small, lean body, a bit on the boyish side, paired with a pretty face of incredibly graceful features and huge, expressive azure eyes.

She had walked through hell together with Trevor and helped him coming back.

Trevor didn’t think he could wish for a better partner in life; she had everything he could possibly need and she sure as hell was more than he deserved.

She _chose him_ and she _loved him_ without asking anything in return.

His hands stilled on his thighs, fingers dipped in the water. Trevor looked down at them for a moment, watching as the flow of the river dragged away the foam and the dirt.

And here he was, _the last Belmont son_ , sitting in a chilly pool far too early in the morning, washing away his shame after the umpteenth inappropriate dream about _somebody else_.

His shoulders sagged unconsciously, his head hanging.

_A dream about a man._

He resumed washing himself, cupping his hands to collect some water and throwing it at his face and above his head. It was so cold that he started shivering, but he didn’t mind.

Trevor was twenty one. He was beyond the age where one discovered their sexuality and, thanks to his all but happy past, he was way beyond caring whether his sexual interest was stirred by a woman or a man.

 _Both of them worked for him_. Trevor had made peace with this truth a long time ago.

He’d never thought his preferences were going to be a problem; actually, before Wallachia almost went to hell under the biggest demon attack ever witnessed by human eyes, they proved to be incredibly convenient.

Trevor drunk, ate, slept and fucked, as simple as that, and liking both genders almost equally made it really easy to find a romp partner for the night. He knew sodomy was frowned upon by the church - to use a very obvious understatement - but he personally didn’t give a shit about it. He was an excommunicant and his relationship with God was all but closed - thank you very much for the offer.

Everything was different _now_.

Now he was the last heir of a well known family of monster slayers, a holy warrior who saved mankind from Satan’s wrath and brought new order in Wallachia.

Not Trevor - the outcast drunkard mercenary anymore. He was a Belmont, the last of them. And he had by his side an amazing woman who honestly loved him and appreciated him.

Trevor trailed his hands through his rebellious, wet locks, eyes focused on the forest yet unseeing.

Nevertheless he was so low, so stupid and _ungrateful_ that he couldn’t be faithful, not even in his dreams. And as much as he would have liked to, he knew he couldn’t blame the handsome blond youth of his dreams for his own weakness.

 

He cracked the Vampire Slayer, hitting the mark he had placed on the bark of the old oak-tree square in the center. Then he spun on himself, flexing his wrist to give new vigor to the whip, tilted his elbow upward and hit the target that was placed right above his head.

The whip cracked as he lured it back, the blessed leather obediently returning to his extended palm like a docile snake.

Trevor pressed his lips into a thin line and winded it up using his forearm. He knew he could have hit both targets quicker.

The sun was high in the sky by now, not even the shade of the forest providing full coverage from his warm rays. Barely an hour into his regular training and Trevor was already in need of another bath.

Despite the sweat rolling down his skin and the mud staining his clothes, he didn’t feel half as dirty as had felt this morning, though. Figments of his wet dream lingered, but Trevor did his best to push them back in the recesses of his mind, as he always did.

Training was helping. It took his mind off trivial things and bolstered his ability to focus and think rationally. When he was alone with the whip, finding creative ways to improve his skills and slay down enemies more effectively, he felt like his presence into this world maybe wasn’t such a waste of space - maybe.

Even if there weren’t many demons around anymore and their attacks to the villages got more and more rare with the passing time, Trevor hadn’t changed his training habits one bit, and still worked out to keep his abilities at best.

He didn’t do it for any particular commitment to the cause of keeping safe the people of Wallachia - that was more a collateral result. He was uncomfortable to admit it, but mainly Trevor engaged in his daily three hours practice to get some blissful alone time - where he was shielded from duties, away from responsibilities and from all those Speakers cooing at him all the damn time. _As if he was the upgraded version of The Messiah and nothing less._

With his whip in hand and a goal set, he was free to simply be Trevor, and it was refreshing.

He dried off a stray drop of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and lifted his eyes to the targets he’d placed on the roof of the forest, trying to figure out a combination of movements to hit all of them, while spending the smallest amount of energy. He squinted slightly through the sunrays, noticing how some of them couldn’t be reached with a direct hit because they were partially hidden behind an obstacle. It was no problem, Trevor knew how to work around those.

He rolled his shoulders - the left one had been giving him problems, lately - and uncoiled Vampire Hunter, ready to strike again, when a soft rustle of leaves behind his back caught his attention.

He immediately turned to see who it was and was surprised to see it was Sypha.

Trevor couldn’t help but go stiff at seeing her graceful figure emerge from the greenish undergrowth. Normally, no one disturbed him when he was practicing.

She stepped out from the low bushes holding her tunic up to ease her movements, a stubborn grimace on her face. When she raised her eyes and stopped scowling at the bushes, she found Trevor already watching her. Her face immediately lightened up and she smiled at him sweetly.

Trevor took a deep breath and willed the muscles in his back to release some of the tension.

“Hey,” he said and smiled back.

“Hello you,” she answered and walked straight to him.

They looked at each other for a moment without saying anything. Then, Sypha’s small hands reached for the front of Trevor’s sweaty shirt and tugged at the fabric none too gently.

“You stink, Belmont,” she reprimanded him, but there was unmistakable fondness in her voice.

Trevor snorted and his smile became more genuine.

“I am doing it on purpose to revive the glorious old times,” he joked, shrugging his shoulders as if it was a given.

Sypha pushed him at his chest, her eyes playful.

“Guess that implies you’re sleeping on the floor, then.”

That took Trevor by surprise and he actually chuckled.

“Sure,” he teased, eyebrows arching up allusively.

Sypha flipped him off, completely unaffected. She walked quietly to the closest tree, absentmindedly caressing the marks Trevor’s knives left into the wood. Then she turned to look at him again and Trevor _knew_ she had come to tell him something. The fact that she was clearly hesitating put him slightly on edge.

“Why is a pretty lady like you in a place like this?” he humored her, trying to test the waters.

Turned out Sypha wasn’t actually in need of any coaxing.

“Alucard called,” she said simply and it was enough to make Trevor stand taller.

The hunter knew Sypha and Alucard had means to contact each other - as in, magical means. It happened rather regularly, Sypha updating Alucard of her and Trevor’s travels and Alucard calling when he discovered something new about his - thankfully dead - father.

Trevor was never part of those private conversations and he was only updated when information coming from the dhampir was important for his hunting purposes.

He hadn’t heard from Alucard in a long while.

To be fair, Adrian actually wrote to him. Once. A few months after he had gifted him the Belmont Hold. The letter was specifically meant for him and delivered with a hawk.

Trevor never answered.

He still kept it secretly stashed among his few possession, though.

“He said he received news on the whereabouts of his father’s forgemasters. Worrying news.”

Trevor nodded, filing away that piece of information. They’ve been searching for Dracula’s human associates for a long time, but the men seemed to vanish between their fingers like grains of sand. Last time they received an update on the matter, one of them - Hector was his name - had been spotted by some Speakers at the borders of Styria in company of a female vampire. But that had been months ago.

Attention completely on Sypha and face somber, Trevor waited to hear the rest of the communication but nothing else came.

“How can we help him if he doesn’t share with us?” Trevor demanded through gritted teeth. He didn’t know whether he should feel annoyed or offended, and it was confusing.

Sypha smiled knowingly and shook her head.

“He said the situation was delicate and he wanted to talk with us in person,” she explained,  sounding irritatingly understanding.

“I guess we could leave tomorrow at dawn if the weather is still this good. The Castle is not that far from here.”

The blood in Trevor’s veins instantly froze, his breath hitching.

Sypha tilted her pretty head, soft curls falling on her forehead.

“Are you okay?” she asked, looking worried.

Clearing his throat, Trevor tried his best to pull himself together

“...Sure. Sounds good to me,” he answered, his voice sounding distant even to his own ears.

The intelligent blue gaze of the sorceress lingered on him a moment longer, clearly pondering his reaction.

“I will ask to have a couple of horses ready,” she said in the end, the soft, affectionate expression back on her face.

“I am actually excited at the idea of being back there!” she confessed, looking so young and just too good for this bad, mad world.

“Do you think it’s stupid?”

Trevor forced a smile on his lips, which, for sure, didn’t reach his eyes.

“No,” he said, feeling his own blood tingle. “No, I don’t think so.”

 

That night, Trevor couldn’t sleep. He was terrified of what could happen if he closed his eyes and conceded himself the luxury to sink into unconsciousness.

He tossed and turned in bed for a long time, his mind giving him no mercy, plaguing him with thoughts that only accentuated the guilt he steadily carried in his stomach. After some time, Sypha rolled over to face him and stretched her arm in his direction caressing down his naked chest, her hand lingering above his heart.

It wasn’t an unusual action - and generally speaking, contact was to be expected between them, since they had been sharing a narrow bed on a regular basis for fairly long, now - but it still managed to make Trevor jump.

He tried to relax under her touch, his abs only clenching harder, but couldn’t muster the courage to seek her face.

“Sorry if I woke you,” he murmured, acknowledging he probably hadn’t made it simple for Sypha to get some well deserved rest.

She shifted closer, resting her head on his shoulder and carving a place for herself against his side.

“Are you having nightmares again?” she whispered, and Trevor could feel the softness of her lips against his naked skin.

He bit his lower lip, the implications behind the apparently innocuous question making his blood run cold.

“Why are you asking?” he questioned, desperately trying to ignore the tension in his muscles and just act like a normal, functioning human being. Sometimes he had the impression of being broken and flawed beyond repair.

He felt the caresses on his chest resume and he focused on the pleasant sensation soothing his aching muscles. It felt good and managed to take the edge off him.

“You’ve been tossing and turning a lot lately,” she explained vaguely, but there was no judgement in her words. No mentions of weird sounds or speaking in his sleep either.

Trevor said nothing about that. He only gulped down the knot tying his throat and hugged her close.

“Something similar, I guess,” he murmured against her forehead.

Sypha had met him during a particularly miserable period of Trevor’s life, when he suffered horrific nightmares of big fires fairly regularly. Back then he had felt ashamed of his own vulnerabilities, but right now they were coming in handy.

Still, lying straight to Sypha’s face when she was obviously worried about him made him feel like a little unworthy cockroach.

The sorceress tilted her face up, placing a small, tender kiss upon his lips. Trevor hummed, kissing her back.

She sighed and melted into his arms, deepening the kiss and pressing herself close. She was already naked, as was her habit when she slept beside Trevor. She said it was because she had fire running through her veins and the hunter’s additional body heat would have made her uncomfortable otherwise.

‘Just admit it’s because I’m too hot,’ Trevor had teased her for a long while. Sypha had laughed but never denied.

Her naked body was soft and languid against his, small curves in all the right places.

Trevor caressed her back gently, feeling her shift against him. Her hand slowly travelled lower on his chest, ghosting over his abdomen and stopping above his belly.

Trevor’s body abruptly went rigid again.

Sex with Sypha had never been a problem until very recently.

A couple of weeks ago, Trevor had inadvertently walked on the Elder of the Speakers while he was blessing Sypha’s womb with the hope of an heir. Trevor wasn’t sure it was possible before, but that scene had managed to completely kill his sex drive - well, except in his dreams, apparently.

He didn’t mention anything about it to Sypha, absolutely firm in the conviction that he had witnessed a private moment between grandfather and granddaughter which he wasn’t meant to see.

Sypha had said nothing on the matter either.

The point was, Trevor didn’t feel ready.

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to be a dad - actually he sort of felt bound to be one in the future. He was the last of a prestigious clan of warriors and continuing the lineage was a duty to his blood, somehow.

Trevor was twenty one years old, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t even sure he was able to take care of himself, so far, how could he take responsibility for a small new life that was put into this shitty world _because of him_? And Sypha… if he really did get Sypha pregnant, then it meant they seriously were…

He pressed his eyes closed and stopped her wandering hand.

Her breath caught, and she raised her head, clearly taken aback.

“I thought I could distract you a little bit,” she huffed an explanation, and Trevor knew for a fact she was excited.

He felt like a total dick for turning her down. If he listened close enough, he could probably hear his own self of a couple of years ago screaming in disbelief at the back of his mind.

“Yeah, I do appreciate that,” he mumbled, lifting up slightly to kiss her lips and then her forehead, sweetening the sour pill.

“I am just… not in the mood I guess,” he trailed off.

He could feel her attentive gaze on him even in the semi darkness of their room.

Finally, Sypha settled down by his side, kissing his shoulder and respectfully keeping the distance.

After several minutes of complete silence, he heard her breath evening out.

Trevor gritted his teeth, staring in the darkness where the wooden gird of his rooftop was supposed to be.

 _It was just a phase_ , he told himself to calm down his inner demons. _Just a phase_.

 

They left with the first lights, a few necessities packed in their bags and their travelling capes around their shoulders. It was a moderately long ride to the Belmont Estate, but at least the weather was extremely nice - which was never a given in this period of the year - and the scenery surely was breathtaking.

They talked and teased each other for the whole journey, as if the previous night never happened - barely a nightmare among Trevor’s many bad dreams.

Trevor was glad Sypha didn’t take his rejection personally. He knew it was stupid, she wasn’t that kind of woman, but the possibility had nagged him for sometime anyway.

He had never turned down someone he cared about before and the last thing he wanted was to make Sypha feel uncomfortable when she always was so good at helping Trevor out of the dark corners of his mind.

Nothing of what was happening to their relationship was actually Sypha’s fault.

They reached the castle at dusk, the setting sun sinking right behind the imposing structure, making it look even more dramatic and majestic, even from the distance.

Trevor had been trying not to think about where they were going for the whole day, Sypha’s amazing conversation skills coincidentally helping his purpose.

But now they were standing less than a kilometer from his old home - Alucard’s current home - and there was really no way he could be able to lie to himself anymore.

His heart was pounding weirdly, his chest heavy. Trevor forced himself to hide his discomfort, his horse following Sypha’s at a gentle canter toward the place where everything finished and everything started.

The sorceress was the one climbing the steps to the main door, leaving Trevor behind to tend to the horses at the bottom of the monumental staircase.

The castle was exactly like Trevor remembered. Unsettling, ridiculously huge. The perfect portrait of the ambition of a man who aimed to the stars and never lower.

It was still weird to see it so close to where Trevor’s childhood home had once proudly stood.

The banging of the knocker against the wide, metal-encased portal broke the quiet stillness of the evening, a few crows taking wing from the nearby trees.

The door opened with a loud creaking of hinges.

Trevor diligently kept his face lowered, eyes focused on the mounts peacefully nibbling the crisp grass.

He heard Sypha’s cheering voice curl in an affectionate greeting, then nothing.

Eaten alive by the silence and the tension, Trevor surrendered to his own curiosity and lifted his gaze to the top of the stairs.

Sypha was there, but Trevor’s eyes weren’t for her. Adrian stood tall by her side, elegant and lean and impossibly beautiful, exactly like the last time they met.

He had his hair collected in a half updo, the upper part of it braided out of his face with only a few short strands escaping. His golden eyes almost glimmered, his skin glaringly white in the rays of the setting sun.

Their eyes met and Trevor could feel his heart drumming steadily into his own hears.

“Hi,” his recurrent wet dream said, expression softening.

“Hi,” Trevor answered, holding the gaze.

Life was a difficult thing.


	2. Of lies and hidden desires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think there are enough words to thank sasu--hime for their precious contribution.

Alucard guided them to the stable, where he helped unsaddling the horses before sheltering them. Afterward, he efficiently led the way into the castle.

Trevor followed in silence, vaguely aware of Sypha’s frenzied, happy chattering and Alucard’s occasional answer in the background.

The main hall of the manor hadn’t changed a lot since the last time Trevor had been there. Debris and dirt had been removed, but damage from their battle was clearly noticeable on the opulent pavement, and scratches and splatters still ruined the high walls. The blood-soaked carpet wasn’t there anymore, and the light coming from the buzzing light bulbs hanging on the walls wasn’t as bluish and cold as Trevor remembered.

The impressive room had been stripped of any furniture or personal object, the glaring emptiness adding to the eerie atmosphere.

Alucard walked them through the hall briskly, as if he himself didn’t like to linger into that room longer than was strictly necessary.

They climbed the first flight of stairs and turned left into a long, vaulted corridor ending into a candlelit space, a library glowing orange from the burning fireplace. It was definitely a warm, cozy room, the walls upholstered by high wooden shelves filled with tomes, a plush sofa in red velvet and two matching armchairs providing an inviting sitting area in the middle. The atmosphere was in puzzling contrast with the soulless appearance of the other rooms of the castle they passed on their way there, and Trevor had to wonder if Adrian felt any particular connection with the library.

Alucard walked casually to the the heartstone, stirring the glowing embers with a stick and throwing in another log. Sypha had already abandoned her travelling bag on the sofa, wandering towards the book-collection with starry eyes.

“I know you must be tired from your long journey,” Alucard’s gentle voice said, the man finally turning to look at them.

“But I feel like I need to share the major details of the situation immediately.”

Trevor was fairly sure he couldn’t afford to lock eyes with the vampire in his current state, so he settled to look at his long, elegant neck instead, left exposed by the thin shirt he was wearing. It made him feel slightly more confident of being in control.

He heard Sypha’s light footsteps walk closer to where he was, but she ignored him completely in favor of the sofa. It wasn’t like Trevor could blame her at all.

“Of course! That’s why we came to you in a rush!” she spurred him on encouragingly, her hands working to unbutton her travelling cloak.

Trevor didn’t feel like sitting - his ass hurt for the many hours on the saddle - so he decided to keep standing, merely lowering his own bag to the ground.

Alucard’s shoulders were stiff and his arms crossed defensively, so he obviously was nervous. Trevor had rarely seen him showing any human emotion that strongly, and he steadied himself for the bad news he was sure was coming.

“I received word that Isaac is back to Wallachia. He’s accompanied by an army of demons and undeads, apparently seeking for a way to resurrect his master.”

The hunter could hear Sypha’s gasp almost as if it was his own, but he merely nodded in understanding, his jaw tightly clenched.

“He was seen crossing the south-western border a couple of days ago, his final destination unclear. The bloody trail he’s leaving behind suggests that he hasn’t lost faith in his master’s dream; in fact he is still raiding villages and killing all the inhabitants according to my father’s original plan. Voices say he’s associated with a skilled human warrior.”

Captivated, Trevor finally forced himself to raise his gaze, immediately finding a frowning handsome face and worried golden eyes.

He looked at Adrian in composed silence, secretly fighting the clawing warmness threatening to spread in his chest. _He had no time for that bullshit._

“A… human?” mumbled Sypha, considering.

“How did he manage to convince another lunatic to join this suicidal nonsense?”

Alucard closed his eyes, exhaling softly. He looked tired, if that made sense for a vampire.

“That is beyond me,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders.

“Whoever this person is, what really bugs me is how skilled at fighting they supposedly are.”

Trevor couldn't help but raise his eyebrows at that.

“What do you mean?” he asked, an unusual bad feeling creeping into his stomach. Alucard wasn’t generally keen on giving compliments, especially not about someone else’s abilities as a warrior.

The dhampir turned towards him and for a second Trevor’s heart jumped in his throat, but it was only a second. It was the first time Trevor spoke after their greetings.

“Do you remember the female vampire Hector was seen with?”

Of course Trevor remembered.

“She was one of my father’s generals and high up in the vampire hierarchy. Her name was Carmilla and she was appointed in Styria.”

“...Was?” Sypha cut in, earning herself a praising glance for her sharp attention.

“Allegedly, she betrayed my father shortly before the final battle and abducted the forgemaster against the man’s will. That’s why she was killed.”

All the pieces clicked together in Trevor’s head.

“There aren’t many humans with enough skills to kill an elder vampire,” he said matter-of-factly, his voice cold.

“Trust me, I know something about it.”

Alucard smiled at him, but it was feeble and tensed.

“No, there aren’t,” he conceded, finally uncrossing his arms.

“But Isaac’s new ally definitely could.”

That was surprising.

From his childhood studies, Trevor knew there were several clans of demon hunters scattered across Europe, plus the occasional mercenaries. With the increased power of the church and the consequent repression of the recent years, he could only guess many had to suffer the same fate of his own family.

As if to confirm this theory, he never happened to come across any other slayer during his many travels. He had never been out of Wallachia, that was true, but considering the impending concentration of demons in the area, it was indubitably weird that no professional had come to get some work done and amass a fortune in gold.

“I was told there were some pro hunters in Europe, around the time my own family was thriving,” he said, because both Sypha and Alucard were looking at him with some poorly hidden expectation.

“It’s a job like any other, really. Only a few families had become renown to be successful hunters across the centuries, generation after generation, but I can’t recall any name at the moment. Plus, all of that was _before_.”

“Before…?” Sypha pushed him, but he didn’t get the time to respond her.

“Before the church seized the power and got all the heretic killed,” Alucard perfectly anticipated his answer.

The corner of Trevor’s lips curled into a subtle grin.

“Looks like some of them survived the witch hunt.”

Silence fell upon them, their thoughts accompanied by the comforting crackling of the fire.

“I would like to search the Belmont Hold, tomorrow, to see if I can find some information on the matter. At this point, I think it might be worth a try,” Sypha gently broke the quiet, her small hands smoothings the creases of her tunic.

Alucard nodded shortly, his mind apparently still wandering.

“I will show you how to open the passage tomorrow in the morning. I already went there myself to see if I could find something, but my search was rather unsuccessful.”

A splitting grin stretched Sypha’s lips.

“Maybe you just need a different point of view,” she teased, in her usual good mood.

Alucard smiled back. It was a little smile, but it was there nonetheless.

Trevor tilted his head, eyes sliding from the sorceress to the vampire.

“Was this all?”

Alucard’s attention shifted on him, burning like a flame.

“Yes. This is all the intelligence I collected so far. I am waiting for an update no later than tomorrow...I am hoping it will lead us somewhere.”

Something passed between them, and Trevor was forced to avert his gaze.

“Come now, let me show you to your room. I bet we could all reason more clearly after some rest.”

 

Trevor was lying face up in the most comfortable bed he ever lay on, wide awake despite the long journey on horseback and the recent sleepless nights.

Sypha was snoring softly by his side, fast asleep and completely sunken under the covers.

He was borderline exhausted and he assumed he was looking like it, but he just couldn’t persuade himself to close his eyes.

They’ve been given a lavish room as big as half of the Speaker settlement, not very far from the welcoming library at the end of the hallway.

Trevor’s eyes were currently focused on the intricate pattern of the curtains of the canopy bed, but his mind and his heart were definitely somewhere else.

Covering his eyes with his forearm, he took in a deep breath, counted to three, then softly released it.

His stomach had stopped hurting and his heartbeat was back to a normal rhythm, but his blood was still buzzing with energy, his body tense, all the muscles coiled as if getting ready to jump in action.

It was absolutely ridiculous.

_Nothing had ever happened between Adrian and him._

Well, nothing that could justify his nervousness nor the way the vampire plagued his dreams, at least.

They had fought together, faced death together, lived in close quarters. Those were experiences that bonded, sure. But there wasn’t anything romantic or interested in those things, anyway.

Not only was Adrian very obviously male - not the preferable choice, then - but he was actually a vampire. _A fucking vampire._ And not even a standard, turned vampire, no. _He was the bloody son of Dracula._

It didn’t matter how gorgeous, or kind, or brilliant the man could be. He was not human, but a Creature of the Night. And Trevor was raised to despise and kill those.

He lifted his weight on his elbows and slowly shifted on the mattress to sit against the headboard, tired of pointlessly lay down with his eyes wide open.

It was easy to follow this train of thoughts, rationally.

Even so, his body and his unconscious mind had been against logical thinking since the very first encounter with the dhampir.

The dreams had started coming to him in the Belmont Hold, during the days they spent together searching for a way to trap Dracula’s castle.

Trevor had thought nothing of them at the beginning. At the time he was lonely, melancholic and a bit desperate, sure as fuck embarrassingly horny. He also was used to have the weirdest dreams in that period, and unconsciously fantasizing about fucking a vampire - an incredibly attractive and fascinating vampire, to be fair - didn’t sound half as bad if compared to all the slaughtered bodies usually taunting him in his nightmares.

When Dracula was killed and the war against the Horde was over, Trevor supposed the dreams would have disappeared as they came. He had been getting really close to Sypha, who was evidently interested in him beyond friendship, and they had left Adrian behind in his castle turned mausoleum. Logically, there was no reason for those teenage fantasies to persist.

Trevor almost growled at the thought.

To be honest, it had only gotten worse overtime.

It didn’t matter that Trevor was in a loving relationship (with sex, plenty of sex), nor that he had finally managed to pull his shit together and stop drinking, nor that he gained a brand new reputation as a hero. It didn’t matter that Adrian was miles away from him, sad and lonely, holed up in his tower like a prissy princess, nor that Trevor ignored his letter because he was afraid the situation would have gotten worse if he answered it.

The dreams still came. Hundreds of them and in many variations, but relentlessly they did.

And they were wonderful and terrible at the same time. Merciless.

Trevor turned his head to the side, barely able to spot Sypha’s head peeking out of the covers.

His chest tightened in shame. Man, he was so tired.

Carefully sliding his legs from under the sheets, he climbed out of bed.

He could see the full moon from the window, throwing oblique rays of pale light into the room. It brought back memories of that night after their battle with Dracula, almost one year ago.

Trevor had found Adrian standing in the meager piece of land that separated the castle’s entrance from the gaping portal of the Belmont Hold, bathing in the moonlight.

He clenched his fists, the memory vibrant as if it was yesterday.

Adrian had looked sad, lost and vulnerable. Human, and so breathtakingly beautiful.

Trevor had gathered up the courage and walked by his side, even if he didn’t have any comforting words to share. He had recognized that feeling on the vampire’s face, because it was deeply rooted into his own core. He had known how Adrian felt.

So he had reached out, slid his fingers between Adrian’s and held them tight. Adrian had let him. They had stayed like that until some clouds fully covered the moon. Holding hands, watching the stars; feeling like small insignificant smudges in the universe.

Trevor gritted his teeth, shifting his gaze across the room and noticing the bag with his personal belongings leaning against the writing desk.

 _Not now._ It wasn’t a good idea to go there now.

Still he was pretty sure he was not going to sleep a wink tonight.

He stretched, feeling his left shoulder pop inside the joint, then decided to go for a walk.

 

He found Adrian in the library, pretending he was reading. Trevor knew it was purely an act because his eyes had been glued to the same spot of the page for more than two full minutes.

“I know you’re not reading that,” Trevor mumbled, leaning against the threshold. Adrian raised his eyes, assessing him. Sure as fuck he had been aware of Trevor’s presence way before Trevor spoke.

He seemed slightly annoyed he’d been called out, his well defined lips slightly downturned. He was so pettish it was honestly funny.

Trevor didn’t ask him why he was staying up in the library this late, pretending to take interest in something which clearly wasn’t his priority. However he knew asking would have meant overstepping boundaries, and Adrian would have likely closed off. Instead, he simply looked at him and smiled, enjoying what he was seeing.

Adrian’s hair had grown even longer.

“You look like shit, Belmont,” the vampire pointed out, but his voice had no bite.

“Why are you not sleeping?”

Trevor knew it was likely true, therefore he had nothing to say in his own defense.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?” he asked instead, gesturing for the sofa.

Adrian seemed genuinely surprised by the inquiry, his eyes big and liquid. He was sitting stiffly in the armchair closer to the fireplace, still holding the book he wasn’t reading as if he could use it as a shield.

“Be my guest,” he muttered after a pause, his eyes shifting to the dying flames.

Trevor silently flopped down on the sofa, his aching back thanking him for the great choice.

They sat in silence for several minutes, Adrian stubbornly not looking at him.

Trevor guessed he deserved it; after all he had been the one deciding to break any communication between them for the last year.

The sole presence of Adrian in the same room made the air electric, his blood reacting to him as moths to a flame, so Trevor remembered very well _why_ he had chosen not to answer that letter.

The subtle attraction he felt for the vampire still made him scared as fuck this very minute, his sense of unworthiness and the general frustration which had been plaguing him for long months causing his emotions to coil unpleasantly into his stomach and mix with the usual guilt.

In any case, he was too exhausted with himself to really act stubbornly, so he decided to be the one breaking the silence.

“I’m having troubles sleeping, lately”, he said casually, observing Adrian’s profile.

Thick, blond lashes fluttered, but Adrian kept his eyes to the flames.

“Have you been drinking a lot?” the dhampir asked, sounding disinterested and just mildly disapproving.

Trevor didn’t mind the cold treatment. He was aware he deserved it.

“No, not really. Not like before, at least.”

The vampire seemed to consider this, his face an expressionless mask.

“I thought you quit,” he said simply.

Trevor raised his feet on the sofa and curled his legs, laying down on his side so that he could still see Adrian’s face.

“So did I,” he confirmed.

“I don’t really think my sleep problems are alcohol related, though,” he added truthfully, paying attention not to go into detail.

Adrian looked down in his lap, then finally, _finally,_ his eyes landed on Trevor and damn, it was like a punch in the guts _every fucking time_.

“I also have trouble sleeping,” he confessed, his voice soft.

“Sometimes,” he added as an afterthought.

Trevor would have teased him about it if he was in his best shape, but he was not, so he offered a tired smile.

“And what do you do when you cannot sleep?”

Adrian shrugged. The expression on his face made him look so fucking young, a child grown up too quickly.

“I read,” he said, then a smirk appeared on his face.

“Or pretend to.”

Trevor snorted, pressing his face in the plushy velvet of the sofa.

“Read something to me, then,” he asked, trying to get more comfortable.

Adrian looked at him for a while, hesitating. Trevor could sense his mind moving fast, but he had no idea where it was running. He waited in silence, respectfully giving Adrian the space he needed, and in the end his expectations weren’t disregarded.

The vampire opened the book he still had in his lap and started the chapter from the beginning, reading out loud. It was a romance between a disgraced princess and a boisterous knight.

Trevor focused on the sound of Adrian’s voice as it rhythmically danced through the words. He had a particular, elegant pronunciation of the vowels and his tongue caressed some consonants as if he was trying to seduce them.

Also, when Adrian was reading, Trevor was free look at him for as long as he wanted without the risk of being busted. So he took full advantage of the situation, realizing how his dreams were lacking when compared to the real thing.

How could this man be the progeny of a demon, he would never understand.

Dream-Adrian’s lips had a slightly different shape, not this well defined. Real-Adrian’s cupid arch wasn’t as deep, the lower lip was fuller. Trevor could see glimpses of white teeths and fangs while the vampire was reading. The hair was different in real life too; Trevor had never met anyone this shade of golden-white blond before. Lashes and eyelashes were also the same color, probably more fitting for an elf  or a creature of light.

The voice was the same though, real-Adrian and dream-Adrian. But Trevor was fairly sure his overactive imagination would promptly proceed to fix all the other minor discrepancies too, from now on.

He closed his eyes trying to silence his mind, for once. His stomach was still clenched, but Trevor was too tired.

He listened to Adrian’s lulling voice while he read smoothly through the story.

Before he knew it, he was fast asleep.

 

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty! Did I snore that loud?”

Trevor opened his eyes to Sypha’s amused face, their noses barely centimeters apart.

He blinked stupidly a couple of times, the aggressive morning light disturbing his vision, until his brain eventually caught on with the situation.

He was still on the velvety red sofa in the library of the castle, laying on his back, one arm dangling over the floor.

Alucard was nowhere to be seen.

“What time is it?” he mumbled, his voice still pasty from sleep.

Sypha chuckled, leaning down to kiss his forehead.

“Actually, well past midday. We let you sleep in, given the state you were in yesterday.”

Trevor’s mind actually still felt gooey, his thoughts messily entwined together, but he didn’t miss the use of the plural pronoun.

Alucard had been there too, then.

“You didn’t answer my question, though!” Sypha teased, shifting some rebellious strands from his face, her hands pleasantly cool.

“How did you end up sleeping on the sofa?”

Trevor closed his eyes, moving his shoulders and stretching his back.

“Couldn't sleep and-” ‘- _went searching for Adrian_ ,’ his brain suggested.

Awkwardly, he cleared his throat. Sypha was still watching him with sympathetic eyes.

“-I didn’t want to wake you,” he said.

She smiled that little fond smile she reserved for their moments of intimacy, then she stood up from the floor.

“I am going back to The Hold,” she informed him quickly.

“There’s breakfast in our room, fruit and some oatmeal soaked in milk.”

Struggling against his creaky shoulder, Trevor pushed himself in a sitting position.

“Did you find anything useful so far?” he asked.

Sypha turned to look at him from the threshold. She shook her head.

“Not really, but the place is massive. I cannot give up this quickly, now can I?”

Trevor smiled at her. Her positive attitude was unshakable and sometimes it rubbed off him.

“Is Alucard helping you?” the question was blasè, totally disinterested. Or so Trevor told himself.

“Actually I think he’s practicing with the sword? He walked into the forest earlier this morning and I heard the clang of metal clashing,” she said, looking thoughtful.

“Either that or he is chopping wood,” she shrugged, but it was obvious she found that last image sort of funny.

Trevor seriously hoped for the training option because, coincidentally, he also had to practice and he hadn’t had a proper sparring partner since _forever_. Plus, prissy Alucard chopping wood actually did sound like trouble.

 

Fate must have been on Trevor’s side that day, because Adrian was actually training.

Trevor found him just a few meters into the forest, taking advantage of the shade offered by the rich canopy. Shirtless, he was methodically going through combinations of lunges and parries in an apparently endless series, left arm composedly folded behind his back, posture elegant.

He seemed so focused on the task at hand that he hadn’t noticed the hunter’s approach, so Trevor was particularly careful not to immediately give away his presence.

Watching Adrian exercising was really... _something_.

Trevor had faced off many swordsmen during his life, and even had the privilege to train with some of them. None of those men have displayed not even one-tenth of the grace and the precision Adrian effortlessly showcased.

Trevor knew very well the vampire was nothing short of deadly with a sword in hand; his advanced skills in the art combined with his superhuman strength, speed and agility made for a killer combo.

He also had an element of surprise on his side; Adrian’s body was all lithe muscles, but his appearance was misleading when it came to his actual abilities. Without any need to compare, Trevor knew for sure he had a lot more muscular mass on himself; he was bigger in chest and shoulder and arms and pretty much everything except height, but his own hardly earned physical strength was nothing when compared to the vampire’s.

If he wanted to, Adrian could literally lift Trevor’s full weight with one arm and throw him back to the castle like a giant potato sack, and he could do all of that before Trevor would get a chance to protest.

A little smile crept on Trevor’s lips as he watched Adrian go through a very fast sequence of moves: lunge, lunge, parry, slash, lunge, backward dodge.

A good challenge always worked like an aphrodisiac on Trevor, and apparently Adrian was no exception.

From what he was seeing, the vampire never stopped training during the year they spent apart, and he was in his usual, excellent physical shape.

Nevertheless, something was off about his appearance. Adrian’s shoulders looked tensed, his features rigid. His lips were downturned, jaw tight, and his eyes lackluster, almost sad.

It was weird to see vulnerability on Adrian’s face, as it was a rare occurrence, the man always careful in hiding away every feeling or emotion behind a cold mask of indifference.

Trevor knew Adrian had much to deal with during the last few months. _Still, he had left him alone with his grief because he was a coward with issues._

The thought made his stomach clench unpleasantly, the regrettable truth making him uncomfortable.

Not wanting his mind to move in that direction any further, he willingly stepped on a dry stick, putting all his weight on his foot. Immediately, the wood cracked and broke and Adrian - as fast as only a vampire could be -  was on guard and turned in his direction.

He appeared surprised, either at Trevor’s presence in the wood or at the fact he hadn’t noticed him approaching, but it showed on his face only for a second.

“Up for a spar, blood-sucker?” Trevor teased him, right hand already running to where the Vampire Slayer was hooked at his belt.

Adrian’s brows drew together and he lowered his sword.

“It appears your masochistic nature didn’t fade overtime,” he said with a straight face, but here it was, that magnetic sparkle back in his eyes, and Trevor wanted both to choke him and do many other less appropriate things at the same time.

Instead he smirked, freeing his whip.

“It’s not masochistic if I win,” he precised, ready to move at the first shift in Adrian’s stance.

The vampire chuckled, straightening his back and setting his sword on position yet again.

“Maybe in your dreams, Belmont,” he said with a husky tone, and then here he was, barely an arm length from Trevor, sword ready to strike.

The hunter was prepared and had no problem dodging the assault, flipping his right arm and cracking the whip, barely missing the retracting arm of the vampire.

Adrian jumped back, unbothered and ever graceful, his honey-colored eyes burning on Trevor.

The hunter held the gaze, unsheathing his sword with his free hand.

“Come on sweetheart, you gotta come at me seriously if you want to stand a chance.” he taunted.

Adrian’s face splitted into a devilish grin full of fangs and Trevor knew he was probably fucked, but it was totally worth it.

He didn’t see him getting closer but he felt Adrian’s presence behind his back and turned in time to parry, dodging the next aggressive blow and jumping back to earn some range for his main weapon. Vampire Slayer cracked in the air but missed, Adrian gaining the upper hand again, forcing him to parry repeatedly with his sword and step back.

Damn, his wrist was screaming from the raw strength behind the blows.

Another strike came before Trevor even had time to aim with the whip, so aggressive it unbalanced him, then Adrian was flipping midair as if gravity was an option and kicked him in the ribs.

Trevor was thrown against a thick tree trunk, but was alert enough to soften his landing with his disgraced right shoulder. He barely had time to hiss his discomfort when Adrian was on him again, but the the adrenaline and elation from the fight was finally kicking in and Trevor parried and pushed him off, forcing him to retreat. He threw a knife that grazed Adrian’s right side, distracting him from the ensuing crack of whip.

This time Vampire Slayer got him, leaving a nasty bruise in the middle of his chest and definitely forcing him to backflip several meters backwards.

The sight of the bleeding wound he inflicted on the unblemished skin felt wrong somehow, Trevor’s chest tightening weirdly upon noticing the damage.

He was growing weak.

He was perfectly aware that Adrian could heal almost instantly from all the wounds he could possibly give him, simply channeling energy into them, but still…

A part of Trevor, almost like a natural instinct to protect, was currently screaming against him.

It was a new, foreign feeling, and it threw him off focus long enough for Adrian lo land a nasty blow at his side.

Trevor growled at the sensation of metal biting in his flesh, his body instinctively retracting from the pain.

Adrian jumped back immediately, wide eyed, breaking his fighting stance.

He looked at the blood marring his blade in evident disbelief, almost as if he couldn’t understand how the thing landed there into the first place.

“Why didn’t you block that?” he asked, his voice sounding different, full of something Trevor didn’t know what to name.

Trevor sighed, not really willing to acknowledge what was going on in his mind, let alone share it. He decided to go for a half-truth.

“I am an asshole and I got distracted by your pretty face.”

Adrian’s eyes went comically big at that, his lips parted.

Trevor couldn’t stifle a chuckle, at the same time palming his wounded side to assess the level of damage. It was nothing worrisome, just a scratch.

“Enjoy it till it lasts, because it’s not gonna happen again,”  he said in a good spirit, lifting his arm and cracking the whip dangerously close to Adrian’s face, forcing him to fix his attention back on the fight.

The vampire still looked a bit out of it as they engaged each other with their swords, not really attacking Trevor with all his might anymore.

The change of attitude was glaringly obvious for the hunter since, normally, to gain the upper hand on Adrian he needed to resort to both whip and sword at the same time, and occasionally even snatch in some throwing-knives.

The vampire avoided an incoming blow to his right side, but left an opening on his left so obvious even a baby would have found a way to take advantage of it. Trevor simply used it to give him a push with his shoulder, forcing him to step in a patch of full daylight. The aggressive sunrays did exactly what Trevor expected they would and momentarily blinded Adrian’s sensitive eyesight, leaving him vulnerable to the Vampire Slayer.

Readily, Trevor cracked the whip and coiled it around Adrian’s legs, tensing the leather abruptly and making him tumble backward into the grass. He walked to him briskly and knelt on his chest to immobilize him, a dagger already raised above the vampire’s heart.

Frozen in this awkward position, they looked at each other in silence, Adrian not even trying to get rid of the pressure of Trevor’s weight.

There was a smile tugging at Trevor’s lips, the borderline offended expression on Adrian’s face making it impossible to stay serious.

“Why in hell are you sulking, since we both know you let me win?” he asked, amusement in his voice.

He lowered the dagger and placed it back to the sheath fastened at his thigh.

Adrian’s answer was sulking even more dramatically.

Trevor raised both brows, enticed by the vampire’s stubbornness, then started poking at Adrian’s exposed sides with nimble fingers.

The reaction was instant, the vampire squirming, wiggling and trying to curl on himself and away from the ticklish hands, embarrassingly high pitched noises forced out his lips.

_Vampiric hyper-sensitivity could be seriously funny, sometimes._

“Trevor!” Adrian squeaked, desperately trying to dislodge the hunter with flailing arms.

“Trevor, you fucker, stop that!”

He was laughing hysterically and his face looked definitely less pale than usual. _Beautiful, holy damn._

Smiling slyly, the hunter decided to give him a break and retreated his offending fingers.

“See?” he asked smugly, while Adrian was doing his best to regain his breath.

“I know how to easily win a match if I want to.”

Adrian threw him a death glare, but it was a lot less effective when he was all throusled and with a smile plastered on his face.

“Get off me now or I am going to kill you.”

 _Well_ , Trevor thought, _no need to wait it out and see if the menace was real or simply a facade_.

He stood up nimbly, taking a couple of steps backwards to put some space between the vampire and himself.

“I can give you a re-match if you want to,” he said teasingly, mischief glinting in his eyes as he watched Adrian sit up and collect himself.

“But only if you promise you will fight for real, this time,” he clarified.

The vampire sighed, looking up at him with suddenly severe eyes.

“And what would happen if you get distracted again and I land a mortal blow next time?”

He sounded annoyed...and some other things Trevor couldn’t place.

The hunter’s expression became more somber but the satisfied grin still lingered on his lips.

“I die,” he shrugged, offering Adrian a helping hand.

The vampire looked at him as if he was crazy.

“It’s okay if it’s you,” Trevor added honestly, impatiently wiggling the fingers of his offered hand.

Adrian shook his head, then slapped the offered hand away.

In the blink of an eye, he was standing on his feet almost nose to nose with Trevor.

“You better not die on me, Belmont,” he growled lowly, and Trevor didn’t know if it was a menace or a curse or an incredibly considerate thing to say.

He didn’t get time to figure it out; Adrian stepped out of his personal space and stood on guard.

 

“I received a hawk with further information,” Alucard declared at dinnertime, as the three of them were sipping some soup in the kitchen at the first floor. Trevor stopped eating and turned to look at the vampire with barely concealed curiosity, but Alucard’s face was an unreadable mask of calm.

He delicately rested his half-empty and incredibly fancy ceramic bowl on the table, waiting for the man to speak up.

Alucard seemed to be pondering his next words carefully.

“The message said Isaac and his horde are currently heading north, burning down every city and village in their path.”

That piece of information wasn’t surprising, really.

“You said they came in from the south-western border,” Sypha interjected, blowing gently on a spoonful of broth.

“What’s so interesting in the north?”

Trevor didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; Speakers were supposed to have an incredible sense of place, afterall.

“ _We_ _are_ in the north,” he suggested, gesturing vaguely as if to encompass the whole castle.

She made a pained face.

“Oh,” she said in a small voice, looking down at her bowl.

“That would make sense. Do you think they are marching to the castle?”

Adrian shrugged, trailing his fingers through a long lock.

“I am not sure my father’s forgemasters know about the castle’s current whereabouts. But if they seriously assume they could resurrect their master, it’s safe to conclude they are probably searching for it.”

Trevor had nothing to say about that.

“I think it’s better if we keep our eyes open,” he suggested, retrieving a spoon to finish his meal with.

“Let’s hope we pinpoint their location before they find us.”

Alucard nodded, but tension had seeped in his features yet again.

 

That night, when Sypha pressed herself against his side, Trevor indulged her. He was in a good mood, unexpectedly full of throbbing energy, and it was undeniable he had been neglecting her for longer than he should have had.

Sypha was responsive to his kisses, enthusiastic even, immediately opening up to his touches. She arched under Trevor’s hands and moaned softly, dancing and flexing like a flame.

The way she vigorously tugged at his clothes and reciprocated the caressess made Trevor feel really wanted and appreciated, the warm sensation momentarily pushing thoughts about Adrian in the back of his conscious mind.

Feeling the wetness between her thighs he rolled her on her back, kissing a path down her body, holding her svelte hips in his hands.

She sighed and immediately parted her legs to make room for him, her fingers curling in his hair as his mouth laced on a hardened nipple.

Trevor took his time to worship her body, hoping he could make her feel as appreciated and treasured as she normally made him feel.

Dipping his calloused thumbs in the inviting valley shaped by her belly button, he lowered himself further, kissing a hipbone, then faintly coarse pubes.

He opened his lips on her inner thigh, his hands sliding lower do tilt her hips up.

Her breath hitched audibly when he kissed her clitoris, her body feeling like burning embers under him.

He opened his mouth and delved into her wetness, relishing in her moans and pants, pressing deeper inside her.

His own body was taking close interest into the matter, his erection leaking when she pressed her thighs around him, her fingers massaging his scalp.

Looking up, he could see over her flat abdomen and a pert bosom that her face was flushed in pleasure, her mouth slack.

Resting one of her thigh on his shoulder he forced her to open up more, changing the angle of penetration and helping the work of his tongue with a couple of fingers.

Her breath started coming out shortened and ragged, the muscles of her legs and abdomen trembling faintly. Even if she was trying to suppress all the moans, Trevor knew she was making her feel really good. She was growing wetter by the minute.

The fingers he had inside her, Trevor curled and rubbed insistently upward, something he had found she especially liked. He lapped at her clitoris, then gently sucked the underside of it and the hand on his head aggressively tugged at a tuft of his hair.

“Ah, Trevor, God!” she sobbed and then she moaned loudly, her legs shaking and her pussy tightening rhythmically around his fingers.

Trevor smiled against her skin, satisfied despite his dick still begging to be touched, and patiently walked her through her orgasm with slow but firm movements of his fingers.

When her muscles relaxed again, she turned into putty in his hands and he raised his face searching for her eyes, some amusement probably visible in his own.

Sypha looked content enough to lay were she was, her expression sated but her gaze still vibrant, attentive and affectionate.

A pleased smile stretching on her lips, she pressed her open palm to Trevor’s face, laughing softly.

“Stop making that smug face, you asshole,” she scolded, her voice a bit husky.

“I can only hope Alucard’s room is far away down the corridor so he didn’t have to hear me.”

...And that was exactly what killed Trevor’s mood in three seconds sharp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people, the witch is back!
> 
> It had been a long, sad, muddy week but I am still here and I am still writing.  
> It is honestly taking me longer than I expected, but small progress is still progress, isn't it? :D
> 
> Until the story is finished I was planning on keeping the updates once a week - if possible on Wednesday (in loving memory of little miss Addams).  
> But if I manage to finish this thing - it grows longer by the minute, ugh - and my beta has time to skim through it, maybe I could consider uploading more frequently.
> 
> Let me know if the story is heading in the direction you expected, your comments under the first chapter had been  
> E V E R Y T H I N G.
> 
> Thanks a lot for your support.  
> Feedback is life <3


	3. Falling apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to sasu--hime for fixing my mistakes and to @HyphenL for the precious support.

 

Trevor awoke with a start, the clear sound of Adrian’s laughter still ringing in his ears. The faint grey light filtering in from the window instantly told him it was barely morning, and he couldn’t hold back a grimace. He was so sick of all of this.

Rolling on his stomach, he pressed his face into the pillow, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down to its normal rhythm.

He was hard, but it wasn’t that uncommon in the morning. And it sure as hell was less humiliating than coming into his pants without being touched because of a fucking dream.

The skin of his back still tingled where dream-Adrian’s hair had grazed it when he’d languidly lolled his head backwards against Trevor shoulder, completely giving himself to him.

Groaning in exasperation, Trevor cursed his fervid imagination and gave up hope he could fall asleep again. He shifted out of bed as quietly as possible, grateful for the fact Sypha was normally a heavy sleeper.

Collecting the bag with his belongings, he trudged to the adjoining bathroom with the intention of fixing his current _hard problem_ and washing the residual sleep off his face.

Looking at the powder room, Trevor had to say Ol’ Vampire Drac had been a fancy man who clearly enjoyed luxury and comfort, and he had done a thorough job at filling his sanctuary with both. Trevor had never seen a bathtub quite that size before, and his family had been loaded.

Plus, the whole castle was provided with an efficient plumbing system, which - seriously - was the real spearhead of innovation.

He walked to the washbasin and turned the cup to fill it with lukewarm water.

Hands on the side of the bowl, he waited, head hanging and eyes unseeing.

He knew there was a mirror placed in front of him, but Trevor was terrified to meet his image. He pondered he probably still looked like shit, tired and unkempt, his red rimmed eyes giving away his demons. He closed the faucet and sunk his hands into the clean water, leaning down to splash some on his face. The coolness of it was soothing, and Trevor spent some time slowly massaging his cheeks and his stinging lids.

He was really in need of a good shave, his stubble now a proper beard, his hair even longer than usual.

Side eyeing the small pouch containing a razor and a few other toiletries - a bar of soap, toothpaste, and the comb Sypha forced upon him - he decided it was time to face his fears and at least try to look like a decent human being.

Grooming forced him to focus his whole attention on his ugly face and away from his musings of a certain charming vampire who shouldn’t have been in his thoughts at all.

As he fully expected, he looked like hell; a vagabond more than an engaged man, a warrior, _the last son of a prestigious family_.

The mirror was totally unmerciful with him but, at the very least, his grumpy image managed to will away his stubborn erection.

When he deemed himself presentable again, the sun was finally raising above the treetops.

Trevor carelessly threw on some clothes, entertaining the idea of going out for a brief hunt before breakfast. He’d been fancying some meat for a while, and the whole process of hiding in the woods and waiting for a prey was normally pleasantly relaxing for him.

He moved to retrieve the extra stash of throwing knives from his bag, planning to bring them with himself in place of the whip.

A neatly folded piece of parchment fell from the blades sheath, gently floating to the pavement, and Trevor found himself holding his breath.

Occasionally, fate was a bitch. When it came to Trevor, maybe even a bit more frequently than just occasionally. Therefore, in hindsight, he should have expected something like this was going to happen.

Gritting his teeth, he leaned down to collect the small piece of paper, holding it between his fingers as if it burned. He had the full intention of tossing the thing back inside his pack and forget about it, he really did... but his fingers were hesitating.

He sighed, looking at the poor thing as if it had done him wrong.

Fingers trembling, he unfolded the worn out parchment to reveal the words his miserable self already knew by heart.

Adrian had taken a big risk with it. He had opened up with Trevor about the mind numbing grief from the loss of his family, hoping to find comfort in a matching soul, someone who could understand the pain. He had confessed his most inner thoughts and his desires, private musings Trevor had never imagined someone else would have fancied sharing with him in the first place, because he sure as fuck was undeserving of it.

Every single line, written in Adrian’s elegant calligraphy, was a call for help and a statement of how lonely and aching the dhampire had been after Sypha and Trevor’s departure. And Trevor, the holy fucker he was, had ignored all of this and turned his head to the other side simply because he was a coward not ready to face his feelings.

Stomach churning, he lowered his eyes on the line that always felt like a punch in the gut, stealing Trevor’s breath away.

 _‘I am sure I might sound ridiculous, but I find my existence has a lot less meaning if you are not around,_ ’ Adrian’s voice recited in Trevor’s head. ‘ _It’s lonely and empty, desolate like the crumbling halls of both our childhood homes. Here alone, I feel purposeless and I am not sure what to do with myself. I miss you._ ’

It was the closest thing to a confession Trevor had ever received and, knowing Adrian, probably one of the most difficult things the vampire had ever put on paper. Being vulnerable was a feeling not meant for a creature of the night. And even if Trevor had seen him like that before, casually intruding in the other man’s space, the level of trust Adrian had displayed toward him left him totally dumbfounded.

The letter was addressed to Trevor and Trevor only.

Not Trevor, the last heir of the house Belmont, Trevor the Almighty Saviour, or Trevor the Vampire Slayer.

Just Trevor.

Hunching his shoulders, he closed his eyes.

Answering that letter would have meant to acknowledge feelings and vulnerabilities, hidden, _dirty_ desires, and the weight of his own guilt.

So Trevor ignored it and Adrian never wrote to him again.

Sighing, he folded the paper again, an unusual sense of nausea assaulting him abruptly.

 _Somehow, even by breathing, he felt as if he was betraying both Sypha and Adrian at the same time_.

But he was scared and insecure and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

Pushing the folded letter in one of his pockets, he retrieved the stash of throwing knives and meticulously loaded them in the belt he’d buckled at his waist.

He needed some fresh air. He had to get out.

 

His nose was the first sense alerting him something was wrong.

He had been out into the woods surrounding the castle for several hours, his hunting largely unsuccessful. The sun was high into the sky by then, signalling the approaching midday, and Trevor’s soul felt partially soothed by the amazing natural scenery caressed by the warming rays.

The stench of rotting corpses assaulted him abruptly, mixed with the unmistakable smell of sulfur that was typical of evoked demons.

Trevor immediately stopped his wandering, eyes and ears alert for possible upcoming enemies.

There wasn't any movement in sight and the forest was quiet, only the soft rustling of the leaves and the gurgling of a nearby rivulet reaching his ears. Trevor was almost resuming his march, quelled, when it suddenly dawned on him. Birds weren’t chirping, toads weren’t croaking, insects weren’t buzzing.

The wood was _deadly_ _silent_. That kind of unnatural silence was never casual.

With an overwhelming feeling of dread setting at the pitch of his stomach, Trevor turned on his heels and started running back toward the castle as fast as he could.

Brushwood and low branches tugged at his clothes and scratched his skin, but Trevor paid them no mind, his body numb. It took him a good twenty minutes to reach the forest’s border and he could hear the battle even before seeing it. The stench of death had grown more intense, growls and screeches filling the air.

With every sense focused on his surroundings, Trevor came out from under the trees beside the charred remnants of his family house.

The clearing surrounding the castle was packed full of demons and infernal beasts from underground and they were attacking in full daylight. Trevor couldn’t believe his eyes.

From the distance he was able to see Sypha’s elemental attacks unleashed upon the beasts, walls of steel sturdy ice splitting the horde in small groups and balls of fire burning those who got trapped within the icy cage.

A gargoyle-like monster spotted Trevor just shy of the battlefield and decided to attempt making a meal out of him, but the hunter slapped him in the face with his whip without battling and eye, the blessed leather literally tearing the thing into pieces. Never like in that moment was Trevor glad he was a big baby and therefore unable to part from his whip; he could only imagine how bad the situation would have been if he’d stashed it away in his room like he had originally intended to.

Vampire Slayer or not, the situation looked downright grim, with the three of them left to face off an entire battalion of monsters completely unprepared.

Deciding he’d seen more than enough, he unsheathed his short sword and threw himself into the melee, cutting down mercilessly whatever abomination had the gall to come at him.

If he wanted to be of any help to Sypha or Alucard, he had to get closer to the castle, and he certainly wouldn’t allow some fucking spawn of devil to get in his way.  

When he finally was in sight of the portal, he spotted Adrian’s elegant figure on top of the monumental staircase, intent in defending his home fiercely. Apparently unscathed, the dhampir moved with his usual speed and grace, cutting down enemies as if they were made of butter, breaking necks and slashing throats with his long, honed fingernails.

Seeing him wild and tousled as he effortlessly tore their enemies apart brought a wave of warm affection and hope in Trevor’s chest, and he found himself whipping and slashing his opponents with renewed vigor.

The coolness of a blade bit maliciously into the flesh above his elbow and Trevor’s attention was abruptly wretched from thoughts of Adrian.

Hissing, he spun on himself to face the fool who just signed in for a one-way ride straight to hell, and found himself face to face with a tall, imposing man with dark skin.

Upon laying his eyes on him, Trevor had no doubts about the stranger's identity; he was the spitting image of a portrait Adrian had drawn.

“I am glad I finally get to meet you, Belmont,” the man said quietly, his cunning eyes scrutinizing Trevor.

“Isaac,” the hunter acknowledged, holding the burning gaze with confidence, taking advantage of the moment to study the man in turn.

The forgemaster was dressed in a plain tunic and nondescript pants, a weird luminescent dagger in his left hand and a cilice in the other one. _Left handed, then._

A nod of the man’s head was enough for the demons encircling them to drift apart a few meters, creating an undisturbed space for them alone to stand in.

“I have heard impressing things about you,” the man said in a monotone voice, and the next second he was lunging at Trevor with surprising speed.

The hunter dodged, actually impressed by the stranger’s dexterity, but it was nothing compared to Adrian’s, so he was confident about having the upper hand.

He stood on guard, waiting for his opponent’s next move to counterattack. Isaac walked around him slowly, like a predator, then lounged at Trevor with the cilice, forcing him to duck, then attempting to stab him from below. Trevor parred and kicked him backwards, gaining space to unleash his whip. The leather cracked in the air and grazed the forgemaster’s shoulder, tearing his tunic open.

To his credit, the man barely flinched, no trace of pain showing on his face.

“Looks like you might live up to the expectations,”  he said in his usual cool voice, and Trevor couldn’t decide if it was an insult or a praise.

Even in doubt, he put up his usual insolent front, a cocky smirk playing on his lips.

“It’s a weird way of hitting on someone, you know?” he mocked, flipping his wrist and striking with the whip, then barrelling into the man with his short sword.

Dagger and sword clashed together several times, the forgemaster efficiently blocking every attack, until Trevor was forced to retreat and rethink his strategy.

Above Isaac’s right shoulder, still on top of the castle’s staircase, Trevor could see Adrian battling with a tall man clad in all black. His opponent was a swordsman and clearly a proficient one; Trevor had never seen Adrian having such difficulty during a duel before, if not in some lucky spar against Trevor himself.

The man - who Trevor could only guess was the ‘mysterious warrior’ Adrian’s informers talked about - smashed into the vampire with the strength of a bull, blocking and dodging every stroke and retaliating blow by blow with fast, angry slashes of his blade.

He wore a weird headdress with a potbelly crown and no crease. The particular hat rung a bell somewhere in Trevor’s brain, but the hunter didn’t have time to dwell among his memories at the minute.

Isaac attacked again, forcing him backward with that weird hybrid between a dagger and a short saber, and - man - he was quick. Not inhumanly fast, but still, Trevor had to concentrate to stay out of reach.

Eventually, the necromancer had to relent his unforgiving rhythm a little, and Trevor was swift in sneaking an elbow through his defences, hitting him hard at his breastbone.

He uncoiled Vampire Slayer and readied to charge a blow, when suddenly a dusty image from his past came forth in his mind, breaking his resolve.

Wide eyed, he raised his gaze over Isaac’s curved form, his attention lingering on the man that was forcing Adrian backward with his raging blows.

Recognition flashed upon him, fear immediately coiling into his stomach. His heartbeat rapidly increased his tempo, banging loudly against Trevor’s ribcage.

“What is it Belmont, have you seen a ghost?” Isaac’s monotone taunted him.

“You look like a scared little lamb.”

_And, honestly, he had and he was actually terrified._

Because, according to his juvenile studies, the man cornering Adrian was none other than Abraham Van Helsing, the most famous vampire slayer in history.

Isaac choose that moment to attack him, reclaiming all of Trevor’s attention on himself.

Trevor’s hands were sweating.

The reason why Van Helsing was widely known among the hunter community was that no vampire except Dracula himself had ever survived him.

He parred the oncoming deluge of blows, skirting to the side, trying to keep Adrian in the corner of his vision.

A lunge missed Trevor’s eyes by millimeters and the next one landed on his shoulder, but he couldn’t care less.

His stomach was churning, preoccupation for Adrian coiling in his belly and mixing with the impending feeling of dread that assaulted him earlier in the forest.

He had to put an end to this skirmish with the forgemaster as fast as he could.

Raising his sword to attack, he put his his whole strength behind every blow, pushing Isaac backwards and forcing him to drop the cilice and hold the dagger with both hands. He unbalanced him and had his sword raised to strike the final blow when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adrian bending in a half.

Trevor’s heart stopped, time slowing down and sounds fading into the background, swallowed by a dull whistle in his head.

Adrian was holding his side, ugly, bloody flowers blooming on his pristine white shirt. He had a pained grimace on his face, but he straightened his back nonetheless, sword in hand, and attacked as if it was nothing.

Trevor couldn’t be fooled; Van Helsing was a visionary and invented the majority of the arsenal and the methods to kill vampires. Adrian was bleeding too much.

Isaac tried to make use of his hesitation to stand up and lash at him again, but Trevor’s heart wasn’t into the fight anymore. He kicked the forgemaster back to the ground then jumped right over him, running through the battlefield with the desperation of a dying man, ducking to dodge claws and cutting down ferociously whatever stood between him and Adrian.

Halfway up the stairs, the whistle in his ears was pierced by Adrian’s sharp hiss, but it was the following whimper that made Trevor’s blood run cold.

He practically threw himself up the last few steps, jumping before Adrian’s crouched form like a madman.

Van Helsing stood in front of him, his eyes two glittering gems, empty and unseing. He lunged at Trevor without hesitating, forcing him to block and deflect the blow.

The vampire slayer appeared taken aback by the intrusion, but his confusion only lasted a second. The next one Trevor was being kicked over the walkway, smashing his forehead against the bumpy stones of the castle’s wall.

Uncaring for the pain and the blood seeping into his eye from a probable cut, he promptly pushed himself on his elbows, fuelled by fear and a wild instinct to protect.

Van Helsing was pressing Adrian to the ground, a foot upon his sternum, glistening sword raised above the vampire’s heart to stake him.

The terrifying scene impressed itself in Trevor’s retina like a gruesome painting bathed in sunlight, unleashing something terrible and roaring in Trevor’s heart.

He would never guess how, but he got Vampire Slayer wrapped around the other hunter’s forearms before he could blink.

Jumping swiftly on his feet for better leverage, he tugged at the leather with all the strength he had left, dragging Van Helsing away from Andrian.

As soon as he got him within arm length, he engaged him in a fierce sword fight, whip forgotten, his mind still disconnected. He was moving on autopilot, as if the sword was nothing more than an extension of his aching soul, a dull whistle drowning away his thoughts.

He attacked, and attacked and attacked relentlessly, until he got the vampire-hunter trapped in the corner of the walkaway, unable to dodge or skirt away.

 _This man wanted to kill Adrian and he’d hurt him._ It was barely a coherent thought, and yet the only thing that made sense in Trevor’s wary mind.

Rage swelled up in his chest and he flexed his wrist and flicked his sword, disarming his opponent. Without hesitation, he raised his blade and slashed down in a smooth semicircle, teeth gritted and muscles straining.

Van Helsing’s severed head was launched over the balustrade and rolled into the dirt in front of the castle, the strange looking hat fluttering to the floor.

Trevor exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding, watching numbly as the few creatures left standing slowly retreated, seething at him and hissing like snakes.

Van Helsing’s body crumbled to the ground in a heap, not even bleeding.

From then on, pure panic kicked in.

In a few strides he was by Adrian’s side, dropping his sword with a clang and kneeling to the ground.

The ornate handle of a dagger stuck out from the vampire’s abdomen, the blade buried to the hilt. There was blood everywhere.

“Fuck,” Trevor squeaked, because seriously, it didn’t look promising.

He reached out with a bloodied hand and delicately shifted some matted strands from Adrian’s face.

The vampire’s eyes were big and watery, scared. He didn’t move except for a distinct shaking of his muscles. He looked in shock.

“Fuck,” Trevor rasped again, unsure where to put his hands and what to do to soothe Adrian’s pain.

The vampire lolled his head to the side, those pleading eyes searching for him.

“Hurts,” he whispered, his voice so small it broke Trevor’s heart.

A pool of fresh blood was quickly forming around the vampire’s body.

Trevor cursed the Lord, trembling hands reaching for the knife buried in Adrian’s belly.

Breathing raggedly, he gripped the hilt and pulled it out.

Adrian would have probably screamed if only he had the strength. Instead, a pained sob was wretched from his throat, his shallow breath hitching badly, and that was that.

“Fuck, I am sorry, I am sorry, I am so sorry…” Trevor babbled some nonsense, trying to hush him. He had never felt this utterly helpless since the day his family was slaughtered in front of his eyes.

For the lack of a better idea, he pressed his palm on the open gash, desperately hoping to slow down the bleeding.

Adrian whimpered, his pale hand shifting slowly to cover up Trevor’s.

“Looks like I get to go first, in the end,” the vampire’s fleeble voice said, and Trevor’s gaze raised to his companion’s face.

Adrian was looking up at him with some sweetness in his eyes, a corner of his lips barely tilted upward in spite of the obvious agony.

Trevor’s mouth fell open, eyes wild. _What? No!_ His own voice screamed in his head, but he couldn’t get out the words. Adrian blinked slowly, his heavy lids lowering.

Adrenaline shot back into Trevor’s system.

“Fuck, no, no, no!” he whisper-screamed, one of his hands reaching up and cupping the vampire’s face.

“Adrian! Adrian, answer me!”

But the vampire’s eyes had fallen closed, his straining muscles finally relaxing under Trevor’s hands.

“Goddamnit!” the hunter screamed roughly, sitting up straighter on his haunches, eyes seeking for help.

As far as he could see, the clearing in front of the castle was a graveyard of putrid corpses and there was no trace of a living soul.

Cursing, Trevor leaned down and cradled the vampire’s body against his chest, putting one arm behind his knees and the other around his back to lift him.

He stood up, the dhampir almost weightless in his hold, and tried not to dwell on how Adrian’s head lolled backwards, lifeless - like a corpse’s - his long blond strands falling away from his face.

“Sypha!” he screamed on top of his lungs, scouring his eyes through the battlefield. He received no answer, but he was sure she must be okay. _Fuck, he was going to break down completely if she wasn’t._

“Sypha!” he tried again, walking to the top step of the stair, searching for any little movement, any subtle indication of her presence. He had seen Sypha’s magic raise above the battlefield until he had managed to stay focused during his fight.

She had to be around somewhere, he couldn’t contemplate any other possibility.

The silence surrounding him was deafening.

He was starting to shake when the sorceress’ voice finally answered him, reaching him from the far right.

Rapidly walking to that corner of the walkaway, Trevor saw her scurrying to the castle, her hands raised. She was covered in grime and ashes and her left arm was bloody, but except for that, she looked unarmed. Panic’s hold on Trevor’s heart relented a little but he was still fretting, a countdown ticking in his head.

Trevor could pinpoint the exact moment Sypha’s line of sight allowed her to see Adrian’s unconscious body slumped in his arms, because her eyes grew big with worry and disbelief and she stared, slack-jawed.

She ran straight up the stairs and to them, making her way through carcasses and the charred bodies covering the ground.

Her face turned pale when she saw all the blood Adrian had lost, her expression mirroring Trevor’s.

“What happened?” she demanded, her voice trembling.

Trevor shook his head.

“Not now,” he cut her short, walking briskly through the castle’s portal and along the main hall, Sypha following him obediently.

“I need you to look at his wound, first.” he shortly informed her.

They practically ran up the stairs to the first floor, rushing down the corridor toward their shared room. Trevor unceremoniously kicked the door open and walked inside, gently laying Adrian’s unconscious body on the canopy bed.

With efficient ease, he unsheathed one of his throwing knives and ran the blade against the material of the vampire shirt, cutting it open at the front.

Both Sypha and him grimaced at the sight of the wound. It was deep and irregular, seven or eight centimeters long and one or two wide. Marring the pale perfection of Adrian’s skin, it looked like the abhorrent gate of hell and nothing less.

Blood still oozed out the teared flesh abundantly, sliding down the vampire’s side and quickly staining the covers.

“Christ, this doesn’t look any good,” Sypha murmured, sharing the hunter's own sentiment.

“Isn’t he supposed to have advanced magical healing or something?”

Trevor shrugged unhelpfully, nervously combing a hand through his hair.

“Theoretically speaking he is supposed to, but as you can see it’s clearly not working now.”

She nodded, focusing back on the wound. She trailed her fingertips against Alucard’s abdomen gently, prodding at the gash’s borders.

“Do you think you can heal him?” Trevor asked impatiently, following all of her movements.

“I am not a healer, Trevor,” she answered, her voice strained.

“I know how to make a couple of remedies which encourage a quicker recovery,” she explained, her eyes not meeting Trevor’s.

“But they only work on humans. I know no spell to cure someone supposed to be dead in the first place.”

Annoyance flared in Trevor’s chest upon her indelicate comment. Hastily, without taking time to collect his scattered thoughts, he grabbed Sypha’s hand from where it rested on Andrian’s abdomen, and aggressively guided it up to his chest, just slightly left of the sternum.

“He’s not undead, Sypha,” he reproached her severely, pressing her open palm to Adrian’s cool skin so that she could feel his heart.

“He’s a halfling and thus has a heartbeat like a regular human being. Though, as you can feel, it’s growing weaker by the minute.”

Sypha looked ashamed of herself, her cheeks tinged pink and her eyes stubbornly lowered.

She retreated her hand as soon as Trevor released it, holding it into her lap as if it had been slapped.

“I don’t know how to help him, Trevor,” she admitted weakly, finally allowing him to see her face. She looked mortified.

“Anything that I could do is likely to do him more harm than good.”

Her words felt like a punch in the face.

Trevor could feel the cold claws of despair ripping his chest open.

_There must be something, anything, they could do to save him._

He used to think Adrian was indestructible, for fuck’s sake, he wasn’t prepared for this kind of shit!

Stepping back from the bed, urgently in need for an outcome for his feelings out of control, Trevor walked to the writing table, punching the wooden surface with all the strength he could muster. The desk cracked, squeaking creepily, but Trevor was left to deal with his bubbling frustration anyway.

Frantic, he started pacing back and forth into the room, fingers gripping his hair roots painfully.

“What are you doing?” Sypha asked him, if possible even more preoccupied than she previously was.

Trevor closed his eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly.

“Thinking. Trying to search through my memories,” he provided, fingers lowering to draw small circles on his temples.

“I know at least one hundred methods to injure or kill a vampire. I got to know at least one way to aid them.”

Still evidently struggling, Sypha gave him a small, encouraging smile. It was sad and forced, but Trevor honestly appreciated her effort to be supportive.

He resumed his pacing, coming to stand at the window outlooking the forest. As if by magic, something clicked in place in his head.

Quickly, he made his way back to Adrian’s side.

“I guess I remembered something, but I am not sure it will work in this case,” he informed Sypha, sitting carefully on the edge of the mattress. He retrieved the knife he’d used to tear the vampire’s shirt open.

“It’s the only thing I could come up with, so I am going to give it a shot nonetheless.”

Without hesitation, he slid the blade against his palm, cutting open a superficial wound. He held his injured hand right above Adrian’s parted lips, waiting for the blood to drip into the vampire’s awaiting mouth.

A couple of thick droplets fell down to stain Adrian’s lips in deep red, but he didn’t react in any way. Not even when Trevor brought his bleeding cut very close to Adrian’s nose did the vampire stirr.

Upon his failure, Sypha side-eyed him sympathetically, but there was no way Trevor was going to give up.

Cupping his bleeding hand, he waited for the blood to form a small ruby pool into his palm whence, to both Sypha’s and his own astonishment, he sucked it into his mouth.

Grimacing at the dense consistency, he leaned down to Adrian’s parted lips, pressing their mouths together and pushing the blood behind the vampire’s fangs with his tongue.

To his relief, Alucard took in a deep breath from Trevor’s own mouth, then started coughing.

The hunter thanked all the saints he could remember for this small success, the metallic tingle of blood still coating his mouth, making his stomach weak.

“Adrian,” he called, his chest constricting when the vampire's eyes found his gaze and glimmered with recognition.

“I have to go get something to make it better, okay?”

His voice was trembling, but he did his best to sound self assured.

Through difficult, ragged breaths, the vampire nodded.

“You have to wait for me before closing your eyes, can you do that?”

Adrian blinked, then gave another small nod.

Trevor felt as if his world had tilted to the side and was slowly falling apart between his fingers.

“Promise me,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against the sweaty one of the vampire.

Adrian searched him with his scared golden eyes, then weakly gripped his shirt. He nodded with more vigor.

Trevor closed his eyes, searing the image of Adrian’s emotional face into his brain.

He forced himself to back away.

“Keep him awake,” he told Sypha, words struggling to come out of his constricting throat.

“I will be back in twenty minutes at most.”

And then he ran.

 

He took his horse without bothering to put on a saddle, riding south on the path toward the closest village. The ancient cemetery was on the road, a small piece of land enclosed by a low drywall, a bit more than a kilometer from the settlement.

Trevor jumped down from horseback and pushed the dangling gate open, trusting his gelding to stay put and wait for his return.

There was a small, humble chapel in the middle of the field, tremulous rows of gravestones and crosses lined in front of it and to its side.

Some graves looked freshly digged, which gave Trevor hope the burial ground was still consecrated.

Hastily, he removed the cloth tied at his waist to conceal his weapons and spread it to the ground.

Digging his hands into the soft soil free from any preamble, he piled several handfuls of cool earth on it. He folded the hems of the cloth together, sealing the precious content inside, then run back to his horse and raced to the castle, holding the small bundle to his chest.

The ticking in his head was going faster, mirroring the erratic rhythm of his heart.

 

Sypha turned to look at him as he stormed into their room, her face clearly trying to conceal the weight of her grief. Adrian’s breathing was short and fast, tortured, his eyes half lidded and puffy, but he was still awake as he promised.

Trevor collected an empty glass from the nightstand, then knelt on the floor beside the bed. He reached for his bigger knife, a hunting blade meant to skin a carcass and cut it down to pieces. Holding the wooden handle, he hovered the sharp edge over his forearm and neatly cut his wrist open.

“Trevor!” came Sypha’s alarmed screech, but Trevor ignored it, doing his best to stay calm and focused on the task.

He rested his injured limbs over the glass and lent Sypha the hunting knife.

“Can you make the blade red-hot?” he asked her, eyes glued to the hypnotic flow of blood rapidly filling the goblet.

The sorceress took the knife from him without further inquiry, holding the metal between her palms.

Out of the corner of his vision, Trevor could see her eyes were filled with barely restrained tears.

After a few seconds she was already offering the blade back, the metal gleaming pinkish from the heat. Trevor took it from her by the handle and lowered the side of the blade to his bleeding cut. Pain hit him sharp and deep, sending caustic jolts up Trevor’s arm, but he studiously ignored it together with the unpleasant smell of burned meat. Groaning through gritted teeth, he checked on the now seared wound and the scar it had left, thinking that, pain or not, it wasn’t a good time to pass out.

Blade abandoned to the floor, Trevor opened up the bundle containing freshly collected graveyard. He spilled a bit of the blood from the glass upon it, digging in with his fingers to mix it.

Through all this, Adrian was silent, his face greenish and even paler than usual, sweat from the agonizing pain glistening his skin.

First, Trevor handed him the glass.

“Drink this. All of this,” he recommended.

Sypha stood up and helped him, crawling on the bed to put more pillows behind the vampire’s back, trying to get him in a half sitting position. She put her smaller hands around Adrian’s, steadying his grip on the glass.

The vampire drunk in small sips, too worn out and in pain to protest against the treatment.

When he was over and Sypha had retrieved the goblet, Trevor raised on his knees with a handful of graveyard merged with his blood. He paused just a second, the knuckles of his free hand caressing fondly the side of Adrian’s face, then pressed the mixture into the vampire’s gaping wound.

Adrian hissed and whimpered, trying to shift away from the pain, pressing his eyes closed.

Trevor knew something about being stabbed and how it hurt like a bitch, but couldn’t afford to empathize. If he wanted to get a chance of saving Adrian’s life, this was the only way. He couldn't break apart, not yet.

Heart constricting in his chest at the evident agony the dhampir was in, Trevor kept rubbing graveyard soil into the wound, stuffing it to the brim.

“Sypha, I need you to fill the bathtub,” he instructed, throwing a glance in her direction to see her nodding. She was crying silently, but still she went.

“I know it hurts, okay? You’re doing great,” he whispered the praise to Adrian’s ear, trailing gentle fingers through his hair.

Adrian’s eyes shifted on his face and Trevor tried his best to smile at him. All he could achieve was more like a creepy frown, a corner of his lips tilted up but his face a mask of worry.

When he heard the sound of sloshing water coming from the bathroom, he stood to pick Adrian up again.

“Hold on to me,” he murmured, waiting for him to lace his arms around his shoulders. The vampire buried his face in the crook of Trevor’s neck, almost as if he wanted to hide, and went along obediently. The action should have stirred wariness and survival instinct in a trained hunter, but it only added to the Belmont’s growing despair.

Trevor carried Adrian to the bathroom where Sypha was waiting and lowered him gradually into the lukewarm water.

It was pretty obvious he was struggling to deal with the impressive amount of ache and the bloodloss, his golden eyes dull and unfocused.

Trevor kept his arms underwater, against his skin, trying to anchor him to reality.

As delicately as possible, he started washing the consecrated soil out of the wound. Adrian didn’t even whimper anymore, barely wincing at the aggravating touches.

“I am going to go upstairs to his room and retrieve some clean clothes,” Sypha said, heading to the door.

“I will also search for some bandages to patch him up.”

Luckily, she was a strong, pragmatic woman. Trevor was grateful.

Left alone with Adrian, Trevor affectionately brushed his fingers through long, blond tresses, doing what he could to soothe him.

Half bent into the bathtub as he was, his face was really close to the vampire’s, his arms wrapped around him, helping him sit up straight.

“I know you are stronger than this, you giant mosquito,” he whispered, his voice breaking. He leaned closer and pressed a kiss to the vampire’s temple.

“Don’t you dare die on me,” he pleaded, quoting Adrian’s own words from the previous day.

Adrian’s fingers curled around his wrist and stayed there.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trivia:  
> \- Why is Abraham Van Helsing always portrayed wearing a hat? You tell me.
> 
> A/N: I am apparently uncapable of writing a story of pure introspection, so... action happened (Plis don't kill me).
> 
> Did you expect this?  
> I am really curious to read your opinions on this (while hiding under a table).  
> Also, you finally know a little about Adrian's POV...and what he did write in his letter for Trevor.
> 
> As always, feedback is super duper welcome!  
> Thanks to all of you lovely people following this small story and offering support.  
> It's very encouraging (and heart warming <3)


	4. With bated breath

The gravity of the situation hit him fully as he sat alone at the kitchen table, weighing the blade he extracted from Adrian’s abdomen in his hands. It catched the light like a multifaceted mirror, different in shape from any knife Trevor had seen, sturdy and paunchy, with two sharp edges. The winged lion richly engraved onto the handle was still stained with Adrian’s blood, but Trevor tried his best to ignore that detail.

He’d barely managed to hold it together when the burning need to save Adrian absorbed his full attention, brain running a thousand miles a minute but focusing on small little tasks, bringing a semblance of order among the chaos of his emotions.

_Bring Adrian inside. Check the wound. Give him blood. Search for soil._

All of that, Trevor could do.

It was good. It gave him the illusion of being helpful.

Now that the first, frantic countdown was over and Trevor had nothing to keep him busy anymore, the tidal wave of his own feelings was threatening to tear him apart, together with a bunch of ifs and buts. It made it very difficult to concentrate on the stupid, vile object in his hands.

Aching everywhere and suddenly drained, Trevor rested the blade upon the dark surface of the table, cradling his throbbing head in his hands.

Despite his and Sypha’s efforts, there was no guarantee Adrian would make it. That was a fact Trevor’s rational side was relentless in reminding him.

In all honesty, he wasn’t ready to deal with that shit.

His vision blurred, eyes stinging. Trevor blinked the fog away.

Out of the three of them, he had always assumed he would be the one dying first.

In front of his face, his hands started shaking. Trevor would have looked at them with disdain, if only his vision wasn’t that blurry and his sockets that sore.

He had almost forgotten how miserable and degrading being powerless could make one feel. Almost.

A lifetime and something ago, when he was nothing more than a brat who’d lost everything, he’d swore he was never allowing himself to feel that way ever again.

_Don’t care about anything. Never love anyone. Material things come and go, people die._

He guessed he had failed his younger self.

Exhaling slowly, he pressed the heel of his hands against his eyelids.

Sypha chose that moment to enter the kitchen and Trevor knew without any need to look.

Her presence held something warm and crackling, like fire embers, and it had always worked like a balm on Trevor’s nerves.

“When Alucard wakes up he is going to throttle us for dressing him in female clothes,” she said, and there was a smile laced with the roughness of her voice.

She used _when_ , not _if_.

Trevor took in a deep breath.

“He is sleeping now. Or he passed out, I wouldn’t know. I guess he really needed to rest, either way.”

He held the air in until his lungs started to hurt, then exhaled from the nose. Sypha’s hand landed gently on his shoulder.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.

_Fuck no, I feel as though I have been stabbed too._

He nodded, the muscles of his neck straining.

Sypha must have noticed, because her hand run up to his nape, her capable fingers working the knots there.

“Nice dagger,” she casually commented, her voice cold. Trevor’s palm shifted on his forehead, then pushed back some loose strands from his face.

His lashes were moist, but he couldn't give a damn. He glared spitefully at the perfectly designed weapon glimmering in the orange rays of the lowering sun.

“This no ordinary dagger,” he answered her, his voice raspy as if he’d screamed himself hoarse.

Sypha leaned over his shoulder, clearly interested in the subject.

“It’s especially designed to kill vampires.”

She didn’t comment on that.  

Trevor heard the noise of a chair being dragged backwards, and she sat down by his side. Carefully, she reached for the blade and lifted it, as if she was measuring it, turning it in her hands and inspecting it closely from all sides.

Trevor gave her some time to draw her own conclusions and build her opinion on the thing.

“Is this silver?” she asked, eyes still focused on the blade.

Trevor’s smirk was not amused.

“Pure silver,” he confirmed.

“Which is borderline absurd. I don’t know if you’ve been educated to the forge, but if you have, you probably already know that silver is a horrible material for blades.”

The sorceress turned to look at him, eyes attentive, both eyebrows raised. Her pretty face was still stained with smudged dirt from the battle.

It was good to have her here, making him feel useful again.

“For a start, it’s expensive as fuck,” he explained, feeling a bit more in control when he had something to think about.

“But even ignoring this detail, it is malleable and too flexible. It bends really easily and it’s difficult to hone. The sharpness on the edges can only last a few stabs, and if silver was to clash against steel it would likely dent or break.”

Sypha seemed to consider his words.

“I thought Alucard’s sword was made of silver?” she offered, sounding insecure.

Trevor shook his head.

“It’s an alloy. Magically speaking less powerful, but definitely more sturdy and fit for a battle.”

He hoped he was making sense. Sypha’s curious eyes were back to the dagger, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“What’s this glassy thing embedded into the handle? It looks like a vial.”

Trevor’s hands reached for the dagger, turning it as if he was wielding it.

“That’s my impression exactly,” he confirmed, flicking his wrist and shaking the knife, then bringing it closer to their faces.

“As you can see, there is still a bit of liquid inside. And did I forget to mention the blade is hollow?”

Sypha threw him a disbelieving glance, but then leaned down to check.

“Jesus fuck, what is the point of this devilish thing?” she sounded both horrified and fascinated by the discovery. Trevor deeply related.

“I can only make a guess,” he admitted honestly, not having seen anything similar before.

“Vampires are weak to silver, but unless you stake their heart it does’t kill them. Same could be said for holy water; burns them superficially, like acid, but doesn’t kill them. Annoys them at most.”

He paused, pointing the dagger toward himself and squinting at the perfect round hole into the tip.

“Now let’s suppose you can find a way to inject those things inside a vampire, and have them pumped around their body by bloodstream, giving direct access to their inner organs…”

“It would be like poison,” Sypha finished his reasoning, cutting him short.

Trevor gritted his teeth. Out loud, it sounded even worse.

“That would explain why we couldn’t stop the bleeding,” she reasoned, pulling a face.

“Do you think that thing inside is holy water?”

Trevor raised the dagger, watching through the handle backlit, moving the pearlescent liquid around.

“My bet is more on colloidal silver or a mixture of the two,” he said, and yeah, no good news either way.

There was a gap in their conversation as both of them tried not to dwell too hard on the fact that their companion had been _poisoned_ , sucker punched like a vile beast while he was fighting honourably.

“This is…” Sypha murmured, her voice a bit weak but sharp at the edges. “Incredibly clever.”

Trevor’s mouth tasted sour, but he certainly couldn’t deny that.

“Van Helsing was an absolute genius. I am not even surprised.”

Sypha’s face displayed no recognition of that name and Trevor realized he still had to share that piece of information with her.

“Isaac’s mysterious warrior actually had a name and a lovely reputation,” he spat, throwing the ingenious dagger in the middle of the table as if it was garbage.

“Abraham Van Helsing, that was the name. Most famous vampire slayer in history, he basically invented the whole arsenal to hunt and kill vampires,” his tone sounded mocking, clearly resentful.

“The only reason why he didn’t come to my mind when we were brainstorming about hunters in Europe is that he’s supposed to be dead by at least half a century.”

At that, Sypha gaped.

“Isaac must be a powerful necromancer, then,” she observed, and Trevor had difficulties to read the emotions playing on her face.

“I don’t know about his magic, but he can definitely brandish a dagger.”

His comment came out a little more vexed than he intended, but it brought a small smile on Sypha’s lips.

“Seems like you got all the fun, today,” she joked and he didn’t know how, but he found the strength to snort a brief laugh even if he felt like breaking.

“Did this Van Helsing get away?” the sorceress asked, not looking him in the eyes.

Trevor gritted his teeth so abruptly that he heard them clank. Instinctively, his hands balled into fists.

_As if he would have let the bastard live after what he’d done._

“You can find his head somewhere at the bottom of the main stairs,” he said, emotionless.

He hoped the asshole was going to stay where he put him, this time. Dead were not supposed to wander around, after all.

Sypha didn’t prod him to know how he managed to defeat the most skilled vampire slayer of all times and Trevor kept his mouth shut. To be fair, he wasn’t even sure how he did it in the first place; _it just sort of happened_. The only thing Trevor remembered with clarity about the confrontation was the overwhelming fear of failing Adrian, of losing him and seeing him killed. The rest was sort of a blur in the background.

Sypha’s delicate touch on his cheek almost made him jump out of his skin in bewilderment.

She smiled at him affectionately, a spark of amusement and pride brightening her eyes.

“You truly are a surprise, Trevor Belmont,” she said fondly, pushing her hand back into his hair in a fond gesture.

“You’ve been amazing before. I was sitting there, absolutely terrified and freaking out because Alucard was bleeding a lot, and you were so cool, knowing exactly what to do.”

Boy, was she wrong.

Trevor had been scared shitless the whole time. He was a mess he couldn’t make sense of, he simply happened to possess a good poker face.

He nodded at Sypha in thanks, but kept his eyes lowered.

She tugged him close and pressed her lips to his forehead.

“Go take a bath, now,” she incited, arms still encircling him.

“You have a nasty cut here, and I think we better put a couple of stitches in it once you’ve cleaned it up.”

She gently pressed the tip of her forefinger to Trevor’s right temple. It stung, but the hunter had gotten worse. He didn’t even recall how he got it.

The idea of washing himself in the bathtub where water had been tinged red by Adrian’s blood put a constricting hold on his stomach, worsening his sense of nausea.

On one hand, he was secretly afraid of being left at his thoughts’ mercy, alone to face the endless hours of desolate waiting, solitarily confronting the _very real_ possibility Adrian’s eyes were never going to open again.

On the other, he didn’t want Sypha’s company either. She was highly empathetic, her calming presence like balm on Trevor’s soul, tempering down misery and the ever present sorrow, but the hunter felt like he didn’t deserve to be comforted.

Especially not now, when he was on the verge of desperation at the thought of losing a lover he never had.

So he freed himself from her hold and stood up, throwing a last spiteful glance to the knife on the table.

He left the room without saying a word.

 

“I think I am going to take a nap. Will you join me?”

Trevor blinked his burning eyes, realizing he’d been staring into the void. The right side of his forehead felt tight and itchy now that his wound had been stitched closed. Grimacing, he stroked his tired lids.

Sypha was washing her hands at the kitchen basin, turning her back to him.

“Perhaps,” he murmured, not actually feeling in the mood for sleep. His body was sore and obviously tired, but his inner turmoil apparently didn’t want to hear reason, still raging wildly.

There was an unshakable weight on his chest threatening to cut off his air every time he moved too brusquely.

“Okay then,” Sypha sighed, walking toward him as she dried up her forearms in a towel.

“I changed the sheets,” she felt compelled to precise, hinting at the fact that she was going to wait for him in their shared alcove.

What was probably a kind gesture on her part only served to stir the horrible jumble of feelings in Trevor’s chest, his sight turning blurry again.

“I’ll go check on Alucard first,” he said, turning his head to the side so that she couldn’t see his teary eyes.

He felt her hand gripping his forearm and squeezing, as if to remind him that she was there for him, always.

Throat suddenly tied in a knot, Trevor waited for her to leave the room before heading out for the stairs.

They had carried Adrian to his private room, hoping he would relax more in a distinctively familiar environment. Also, it appeared all of the vampire’s personal belonging were stored there, making it easier to dig around for basic necessities.

Trevor had never seen Adrian’s private quarters before, not even in a dream. The room was actually a lot more modest than he would have expected, still huge and decorated in a similar fashion to the one given to Sypha and him, but nothing too pompous.

There was a spacious bed with a structure made in wrought iron, thick blue curtains framing the tall window. A wardrobe, a writing desk, and an ottoman in front of the fireplace. A richly embroidered carpet of oriental craftsmanship covered a good part of the wooden floor, but that was it.

No family pictures or trinkets or anything.

Adrian laid in bed looking more dead than alive, his normally shining strands matted and dulled, ruffled in weird places. Small drops of sweat made his skin glisten in the candlelight, his long lashes casting spider-like shadows under his eyes. He was ashen pale as only corpses managed to be.

There was a small crease in the middle of his eyebrows, his forehead wrinkled.

Trevor knew something about pain and despair and he could imagine very well what sort of nightmares could be tarnishing Adrian’s rest.

After a moment of hesitation, Trevor reached out toward the vampire’s face to smoothen those harsh lines with his thumb.

Adrian made a small sound when he touched him, but it wasn’t what alarmed Trevor.

The vampire’s skin was quite literally burning, unbelievably hot under his hand. A human was surely not able to withstand a similar temperature without being damaged, and Trevor’s hunter instincts told him that for a vampire the situation was likely even worse.

Adrenaline kicking in, he immediately reached for the blankets and uncovered Adrian’s body, discovering he was drenched in sweat. Small little blisters were forming on his fingers and his legs, the skin looking like he was boiling from inside.

He picked him up without stopping to think twice, the vampire feeling like a living furnace pressed against his chest. All but running to the bathroom, he shouldered the door open and knelt to lay him inside the bathtub, nightgown and all. He tapped open the cold water, flinching away in shock from the staggering difference in temperature. Adrian didn’t move, still trapped in the exhausted sleep following a life threatening injury.

Trevor waited for the tub to be completely filled, one arm half hugging the vampire’s chest to keep his head above the water level and prevent him from drowning.

Still, he collected handfuls of ice-cold water and gently spilled it on Adrian’s forehead and hair, massaging it through the locks as his own mother had done for him that one time he got really sick with chickenpox.

“Come on Adrian, don’t do this to me,” his voice didn’t even sound like his own, reaching him from the distance, from another plane of existence.

He leaned down to rest his forehead against the top of the vampire’s head. The tears he’d been stubbornly trying to hold back started falling freely.

_He’s gonna die. He’s gonna die and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. He’s gonna die and you--_

“What’s wrong?” Sypha’s concerned voice reached him from the threshold.

Trevor’s face jerked toward her, arms still cradling Adrian’s body close.

His mouth was open but he seemed unable to utter words.

Sypha crouched on the other side of the bathtub, perceptively reaching out to cup the vampire’s face with her hands.

“Christ. Jesus fucking Christ!” she stammered, and normally Trevor would have teased her because his bad mouth was rubbing off her, but he was paralyzed in fear.

She made a sign with her hands and a thin layer of ice started to form on the water’s surface.

Trevor felt the tingles of ice crystals brushing against his arms underwater, but didn’t relent his hold.

Sypha clapped her hands together and then separated her palms, holding them in front of one another. Crumbled ice started forming in the space between them and she collected it in a washcloth, folding the material to create a sort of ice-bag.

“Damn, his shins are already full of blisters,” she commented, eying Alucard’s legs from above the water.

She leaned in and delicately pressed the ice-cloth against the vampire’s face.

Surely she had noticed the silent tears falling down Trevor’s cheeks, but she didn’t comment upon that nor let her eyes linger. A small part of the hunter was grateful she let him keep his pride.

Silence fell back between them, save for the quiet creaking of ice in the water and the sound of drops falling from the faucet.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Sypha asked after a while. Her voice was quiet but there was a gentle note of reproach in her words.

Trevor took in a deep breath. He didn’t know what to answer her.

She was sensible enough not to pry.

Instead, she sat more comfortably on the tiled floor of the bathroom, reaching out to stroke Alucard’s face with her free hand.

“Seems like the temperature is quickly dropping, at least,” she commented, attentive eyes lingering on the vampire’s features.

Trevor wouldn’t know.

He had lost sensitivity in his sunken arms a long time ago.

 

It took more than an hour for Alucard’s body temperature to drop back to his usual coolness.

When Sypha deemed it appropriate, Trevor fished him out of the tub and they undressed him of his drenched clothes.

They removed the bandages to check on the wound, noticing how a bluish sort of halo had formed around the lacerated flash, blooming like an ink stain on Alucard’s milky skin.

The whole area surrounding the wound was slightly swollen, giving the macabre impression of a gigantic bruise.

“Can you fetch me the wrap with the soil?” rasped Trevor, his hand extended toward the cabinet beside the basin.

Sypha eyed him suspiciously, but stood up to retrieve what he asked for, handing it over.

Now that he found an outlet for his compressed emotions, Trevor felt more calm and grounded than he had been since the battle. It was a bit embarrassing he’d needed to break down like a crybaby in order to keep his sanity, but  it served the purpose for the time being, so he refused to feel uncomfortable about it.

He was still aware of the painful pressure squeezing his chest and his stomach felt weak, but his brain was incredibly lucid and he was finally able to reason with clarity.

The fever was a good sign.

It could have been lethal if they hadn’t managed to drop the temperature quickly, and still it wasn’t guaranteed it hadn’t done severe damage to the vampire’s body, but in human terms it meant Adrian's body was trying to fight off the poison. Adrian’s condition of a halfling could be working in their favour, as absurd as it sounded. At least, Trevor hoped so.

The bluish coloring surrounding the wound surely was determined by residual traces of silver embedded in the flesh; he only hoped his doing was helping the vampire’s system in getting rid of them.

He collected a bit of the paste he made with his blood and the graveyard soil and pressed it back to refill the wound. He saw Sypha grimacing out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t understand the purpose of rubbing dirt into an open gash, washing it out and then rubbing it in again,” she said, her face revealing clearly how stupid she thought the action was.

Trevor raised his eyes, his fingertips still testing the swelling at Alucard’s abdomen.

“It’s not dirt,” he corrected her quietly, looking at her raised eyebrows.

“It’s consecrated soil from a graveyard. He might not be a full vampire but he is not entirely human either.”

She seemed surprised by his explanation and her demeanor relaxed, letting Trevor know she was reining in her disapproval. The hunter couldn’t blame her for her initial skepticism - rubbing soil in to a human wound was basically a one way ticket to gangrene, and as Sypha had clearly said earlier, she was only used to deal with humans.

On his part, Trevor couldn’t be sure his remedy was actually working, but he remembered something about vampires purposely resting in a cemetery to recover their strength faster. He could only hope Adrian’s vampire side responded well to the treatment.

With Sypha’s aid, Trevor redressed the wound, then slipped on a clean, frill chemise on the vampire. Despite the blistered and irritated skin of his legs and hands, the outfit still made him look like a human sized porcelain doll - and Adrian surely would kill him for that thought.

“Thank you for your help,” he blurted out, not raising his eyes to look at Sypha. He knew she would understand the full extent of his gratefulness without any need for eye contact.

She reached out and pet him on his head as if he was an unruly child.

“Nothing I deserve to be thanked for,” she said with a gentle voice.

Trevor nodded, carefully picking Adrian up from the floor and standing on his feet.

He turned to look at her.

“Go to sleep,” he said, fully aware of the tired lines showing on her face from the magical strain and of the efforts she had poured for both Adrian’s and his sake during that endless day.

“It’s better if we take turns keeping an eye on him,” he explained.

“You go and sleep first. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”

Sypha silently followed him out of the bathroom to Adrian’s room.

Her eyes lingered on Trevor as he slowly, tenderly, laid the unconscious vampire on the mattress, gently moving the long blond strands away from his face. She remained in the threshold as he tucked Adrian in, folding the covers with care.

When Trevor turned towards her, still sharply aware of her presence, her eyes were unfocused and she was wearing an unreadable expression on her face. It lasted only a handful of seconds before her features relaxed, her eyes finally raising and searching for his.

“I’ll go, then,” she said in a small voice.

She turned and disappeared into the corridor without waiting for Trevor’s answer.

Trevor thought it strange, but not stranger than all the other strange things happening recently.

 

Sitting beside Adrian’s bed in the fancy ottoman, Trevor fought against the exhaustion tugging at his lids. It wasn’t like he felt any desire to sleep, his mind still overcrowded and his heart heavy from dark thoughts, but apparently the battle and the emotional distress he put himself through were adding to his record of restless nights, definitely wearing his body down.

Adrian was as still as a corpse on the bed, resting in the same position Trevor had laid him in hours ago, only the faint rising and falling of the covers at his chest suggesting he was still alive.

He wasn’t sweating anymore and the frown had disappeared from his face, his features now perfectly relaxed as if he was peacefully sleeping.

The soft creaking of the fireplace and the occasional blowing of the wind were Trevor’s only company as he faithfully watched over the vampire. In these moments of complete quiet he could hear his own heartbeat, loud against his ribcage.

Sighing, he tiredly rubbed at his eyes, his lids unbearably heavy and sore, hoping to coax them in staying wide-open for a few more hours. He pulled a face at the following stingy sensation, unable to repress a yawn despite his best efforts.

Seeking something to do to pass time, he reached for Adrian’s heavy blankets, moving them gently aside to expose his arm and his right hand, meaning to check on the painful looking blisters. They were small round spheres full of liquid, not bigger than the head of a pin, but there were so many of them marring Adrian’s fingers that the skin looked covered in irritated scabs from a rash.

Curious and sympathetic, Trevor reached out a probing finger and stroked them.

They felt rough under his fingertip despite the callousness dulling his perception, Adrian’s skin as cold as if he had been standing in the snow during full winter.

Suspicious, Trevor dragged his gentle touch across the exposed forearm and up the vampire's arm, noticing how the unusually cold temperature was a constant.

He turned instinctively to check the still burning fire in the hearthstone, trying to determine if the room was cooler than it was supposed to be.

Personally he was only clad in a linen shirt under the leather shoulder protection with his family crest and he didn’t feel any need to cover up more.

Standing up, he allowed his hand to cup the vampire’s sleeping face, noticing how the normally faintly colored lips - the only part of Adrian’s skin not as pale as snow - were taking on a slightly bluish tint.

 _Well, obviously._ When the fever broke, feeling cold was normal, wasn’t it?

Trevor grimaced. The self-reassurance sounded weak and forced even to his own ears.

He reluctantly relinquished his position at Adrian’s sickbed, heading to the wardrobe where he hoped to find some additional blankets. Among several fine shirts and tailored pants, he spotted a soft woolen duvet knitted in an elaborate braid pattern. He retrieved it and spread it out above the other layers, enveloping Adrian’s body and tucking him in a sort of cocoon.

_Man, even the vampire’s neck felt so fuking cold…_

The vise of worry tightened its hold on Trevor yet again, apparently hell bent in not giving him peace. He had sent Sypha to catch some sleep no longer than a couple of hours ago and he wasn’t ready for another panic attack. Should he wake her up and alert her of this new development?

“Oh, screw this,” he murmured to himself, already reaching for the straps securing the armor on his shoulders. He summarily shrugged the leather off, draping it carelessly on the back of the ottoman. Next, he unlaced and kicked off his boots.

He lifted the covers - with some difficulties given how tightly he had wrapped Adrian in - and climbed into bed, shifting the vampire’s body toward the centre of the mattress. He rolled him to the side - slowly and gently, mindful of the open wound - then dragged up the bedding to cover them both.

Swallowing hard, he reached out and embraced Adrian around the waist, pulling their bodies flush together. He knew he was blushing because he felt his face growing hot, which was absolutely ridiculous considering the sort of dreams involving Adrian Trevor had been having for more than a year. Despite all the sex they had been doing in his mind, the way he was holding the vampire was decidedly more loving and intimate than anything Trevor normally felt comfortable with - especially if he was the one taking the initiative.

_He’s dying and you still let your personal issues in the way. Pathetic._

Adrian felt like a lean and sinewy snowman in his arms, his coldness seeping through the thin material of Trevor’s shirt, raising gooseflesh on his arms.

He closed his eyes and tried to relax, his preoccupation partially soothed by the slow but steady heartbeat thrumming under his palm.

Sliding the other arm under the pillow, he lowered his head and couldn’t resist pressing his nose against the back of Adrian’s neck in a gesture that he had caught himself craving sometimes in the past. Taking in a breath, blood was all he could smell.

He idly wondered, his chest tight, if that was Adrian’s regular scent or if it was merely a consequence of their bloody afternoon. _Adrian was a vampire, after all_ . _Blood was an inextricable part of his nature._

Trevor opened his eyes to a sea of soft gold, and reached up with his hand to push the ticklish strands out of the way.

He got to see a side of Adrian’s snow-white face, the curve of thick blond lashes stemming above a high cheekbone.

_Definitely too gorgeous to be human._

There was plenty of sad irony in the Last Belmont Son being enthralled by a vampire, or so Trevor thought.

 

When Trevor woke up he didn’t remember anything about where he was and what had happened, at first. He only knew something had disturbed his sleep when he still was unbelievably tired, and his mind was heavily protesting.

He forced his eyes open to a slit, blinking stupidly at the sight of a white nape and an impressive mane of blond hair.

Then a soft sound, almost a whimper, caught his ears, the body in his arms stirring, and suddenly everything resurfaced.

His eyes shot wide open with concern as he fumbled to sit up, his left arm asleep due to the uncomfortable position he’d been laying in for too long. Fuck, he had probably dozed off from exhaustion when Adrian’s body finally decided to absorb some off the body heat Trevor had been sharing, taking off the sensation of embracing an ice stick.

He relented his hold on the vampire as if burnt, and Adrian rolled on his back, body shivering lightly, allowing Trevor to see his creased face.

Trevor instinctively reached out and caressed the tensed line of Adrian’s jaw, trying to calm him as he figured out what was going on. Adrian whimpered and pressed against him, not providing any other clue about the source of his discomfort.

Feeling helpless, Trevor leaned down, noticing the salty streaks of tears marring the vampire’s cheekbones. He erased them with a swipe of his thumbs, wondering how long Adrian had been thrashing in his sleep before waking him up - _Trevor normally prided himself to be a light sleeper with well honed senses, for fuck’s sake_.

He bit his lower lip and let his eyes roam over what he could see of the vampire’s body, distantly wondering if he had strained the wound with some brusque movement.

The pained little sounds stopped, Adrian’s body going completely still, and Trevor glanced  up to find a pair of scared honey eyes focused on him.

His breath got caught.

Adrian blinked, hints of confusion meddling with the other emotions displayed on his face, then abruptly pushed Trevor away from where he hovered above him, stiffly sitting up.

Trevor was too dumbfounded to take offense, eyes still focused on the vampire and full of disbelief, mind not wholly realizing Adrian was awake and apparently functioning.

There was a moment of utter stillness, with Trevor regarding Adrian as if he’d seen a ghost and a wide-eyed, panting Adrian focused on his blanketed lap.

Before long, Adrian hiccupped and retched.

Trevor gave a small start, taken aback by the unexpected turn of events, but he moved automatically to collect the upper blanket and bring it closer to the vampire’s body, so that he wouldn’t stain his clothing if he emptied his stomach.

Adrian heaved again, spilling a bit of blood into the blanket and coughing as another contraction wracked his body.

Trying to be helpful, Trevor raised on his knees, reaching for the long hair and collecting it to keep it out of the way. He tilted Adrian’s upper body slightly forward, sneaking an arm around him to favor his balance.

The fact that he was puking blood would have been alarming if Adrian was a human, but given he was a vampire and had recently fed it only made sense.

To be fair, despite the horrible way he was retching, Adrian didn’t throw up much - which Trevor was thankful for. He needed that blood to stay in his stomach at the moment.

He was trembling pretty badly in Trevor’s hold, his breath coming out in raspy pants.

“What is this?”

Adrian’s voice came out small, shy and a bit rough from disuse. It filled Trevor’s heart with authentic joy nonetheless, magically erasing any residual fear and tiredness.

“ _This_ what?” Trevor asked gently, bending over to peer at the vampire’s face.

Adrian looked shocked, his eyes big.

He threw a pleading glance in Trevor’s direction and somehow, the hunter understood what he meant. A small smile tugged at his lips against his conscious will.

“Oh. It’s just a bit of vomit, you big-baby,” he told him encouragingly, releasing his hair and pinning the front strands behind Adrian’s ear.

“I used to do it often. No need to make a fuss!”

Adrian blinked, still looking unconvinced.

“I don’t think vampires are biologically designed to do it,” he declared softly, appearing oddly concerned.

Trevor couldn’t have held back laughter even if he seriously tried.

Adrian’s horrified frown, his nose turned in disgust, the particular, entitled way he phrased his worry and the sheer absurdity of the situation mixed together with the elation of relief - _Adrian wasn’t dying holy damn_ \- had Trevor cracking.

He laughed wholeheartedly.

Adrian quirked an eyebrow at him but said nothing, sagging in Trevor’s embrace and allowing him to support his full weight.

“I am glad you can puke,” Trevor told him playfully as soon as he calmed down enough. It meant Adrian’s body was trying every method to get rid of the residual silver in his system and, if the devil assisted them, he could come out swinging.

  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trivia:
> 
> \- All the things about silver being a bad material for weapons are true. My whole family has a passion for blades, sorry you had to endure this. The dagger I hereby described is a product of my fervid imagination, sorry about that too.  
> \- Don’t know if you are interested but the Winged Lion is the symbol of St. Mark the Evangelist. This iconography originally comes from the prophetic visions contained in the verse Revelations 4:7, the lion being one of the four living creatures sitting around the throne of the Almighty. It was later chosen as an embodiment of S.Mark because his first Gospel opens with the “mighty roar” of St. John as he called for conversion. The wings are associated with the revelation in recognizing Jesus like “one but three” (he is at the same time Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit). Also, St.Mark is linked with the church of Alexandria.  
> \- Yeah, I know I screwed up a bit with timelines, okay? Prof. A. Van Helsing is a fictional character that was introduced in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). So, even if no official date of birth is given, it’s legit to locate him centuries later in time compared to the setting of this story (Wallachia, Second half of 15th century - quoting Netflix). Now, I do love that novel viscerally, but I also think Mr. Stocker wouldn’t have minded having his character (or some ancestor of him!) imagined a few centuries before (and kicking asses). So here you have it. Anyway, many recent adaptations of Dracula’s story have shifted the timeline backward...or forward, so I don’t feel too guilty.  
> \- Colloidal silver was firstly used (in medicine) by the Druids, as a germicide and a disinfectant. It’s a suspension of submicroscopic metallic silver particles in a colloidal base.  
> \- According to some European folklore, vampires can recover their full strength when resting in a regular tomb in a graveyard, ‘cause apparently blessed soil is soothing for the dead (never asked one for confirmation, tho).
> 
> A/N: Heeello everyone!How is it going?
> 
> Just wanted to inform you I finished writing this whole thing, so now all that is left is to revise it and make it coherent.  
> As you might have noticed I increased the total number of the chapters. That is because when I originally plotted this story I aimed for something with a wordcount around 25.000, but in the end (I don't know how, I swear) I ended up with around 50.000, shame on me.  
> Also, I am considering splitting Ch.5 in two because - damn - the thing is MASSIVE. We will see about it - let me know what you'd prefer maybe? :)
> 
> Thank you a lot for your support and your lovely comments! I always look forward to them and they brighten my day.  
> Feedback, opinions, shaenigans and conspiracy theories are super welcome.
> 
> Have a nice day you all!


	5. Boundaries? (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd cause today I woke up suicidal.

He'd just placed the kettle on the fire when Sypha managed to sneak up on him, abruptly poking him in the ribs with an angry finger.

Trevor almost jumped out of his skin in surprise, dropping the porcelain cup he was holding and barely managing to catch it before it smashed to the floor. He was so distracted that he didn’t hear her approaching.

He turned to look at her sheepishly, embarrassed both by his natural clumsiness and especially at being caught off guard. She was glaring at him with a scolding face, her eyes severe but not completely able to hide some amusement and the affection she felt towards him.

He must have woke her when he rummaged through the kitchen cupboards searching for a pot.

“Trevor fucking Belmont,” she growled, hastily jabbing a finger at him. Trevor dodged it and pulled a face, then strengthened the grimace into something that _ideally_ was supposed to remind of a smile. An angry Sypha never led to anything good, and he had to try saving his ass one way or another. Better work to sweeten her up from the start, since he had no idea why she was mad at him.

“Shame on you! You lied straight to my face and let me sleep till morning!”

Trevor looked shocked for a second then gazed furtively out of the window, only then noticing the rising sun peeking above the trees. He scratched the stubble on his cheek, not really knowing what to say.

Sypha’s accusing finger raised to stab his forehead, her lips already parting in the process of continuing her early-morning rant with the full intention of making him feel guilty.

Thankfully for him, his self-preservation won against his rational side and before thinking or letting her speak he blurted out a fast “He’s awake,” that managed to stop her in her track.

She froze with eyes and mouth wide, a shadow of emotion passing quickly over her face. The huge smile that stretched her lips immediately after was genuine and extremely contagious, relief and joy glimmering in her gaze.

“That’s awesome!” she cheered loudly, any trace of resentment vanishing in favor of jubilant enthusiasm and her usual good mood.

“How is he? Is he coherent?” she asked, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Trevor shrugged, turning around and resuming what he was doing before she arrived, searching the cupboards for some herbs to make tea.

“He sounds like his usual asshole self to me,” he joked, unable to stop a fond smile from curving his lips.

He finally found the jar containing dry chamomile flowers and stood on his toes to retrieve it from the shelf.

“...But feel free to go upstairs and check on him,” he added, perceiving Sypha’s barely restrained energy and how hard she was trying to hold herself back from running to Adrian, probably out of politeness toward Trevor.

Smiling at him shyly as she did when she was caught doing something she was supposed not to, Sypha immediately acted on the suggestion and bounced back to the kitchen’s entrance with the grace of a fox.

“Let me just warn you,” Trevor called after her, holding back laughter when he saw her abruptly pulling the brake and spinning on herself like a disappointed child.

“He is currently sulking because at the ripe old age of twenty years old he got to experience the joys of puking for the first time.”

Sypha’s face contorted in a half-amused, half-disgusted frown.

“Did he vomit on you?” she inquired teasingly, arching up a fine eyebrow.

At that suggestion, Trevor smiled for real, a tender, grateful smile that only rarely found its way to his face.

“Oh, c’mon. Don’t act like you didn’t do it first!” he called her out, digging among his oldest memories of her and making her giggle.

“I am starting to think it’s my fault…” he pouted absentmindedly, pretending to take offense.

That only made her chuckle louder.

Dismissing him with a gesture of her hand, she exited the room, and Trevor could hear the clear sound of her laughter growing lighter as she walked away.

He shook his head vaguely amused, warm affection swelling in his chest.

A small smile plastered on his face, he found a filter and filled it with a spoonful of chamomile flowers, delicately placing it inside a ceramic cup. He went to retrieve the boiling kettle and poured some water to make tea.

 

When he made it upstairs again, Sypha had placed a few fluffy pillows behind Alucard’s back and was sitting in bed beside him. With a gentle palm on his forehead she was testing his temperature, holding one of his hands in her free one.

The vampire allowed her to fuss over him meekly, a soft expression of his pale face. He looked tired and a bit uncomfortable, but also thankful, his eyes discretely peering up at the sorceress’ face.

Trevor respectfully made his presence known by knocking at the open door, Sypha immediately acknowledging him and beckoning him over with a gentle smile.

Alucard’s eyes found him as soon as he got into the room, interested and strangely intense.

Trevor handed him the cup of chamomile and Alucard reached out for it like a man dying of thirst. The hunter guessed he probably wanted to remove any aftertaste lingering in his mouth and quell down the sense of nausea, eventually.

Alucard took a greedy sip and ended up coughing, his face inevitably contorting in a pained grimace for the consequent pull at his fresh wound.

Acting like an alarmed doting mother, Sypha immediately jumped on her feet, pushing him back against the pillows and placing a palm over his abdomen, quickly checking if there was any trace of blood seeping through the bandages.

Trevor merely rolled his eyes at the scene, his practical sense pushing him to reach for the cup of tea in Alucard’s hands, steadying his grip so that it didn’t spill.

_The last thing they needed at the moment was a scald to add into that mess._

As Trevor’s bigger hands closed over the vampire's, Alucard’s eyes found his immediately, watery from his quite-too-literal attempt at drowning his sorrows.

Trevor didn’t shy away, pleased of seeing him quick and attentive. He helped him bring the cup back to his lips and watched as he sipped quietly.

He was distracted by the soft sound of Sypha’s chuckle.

“Here we witness Alucard the almighty,” she said in a purposely solemn tone, mischief glinting in her eyes.

“...Survives a deadly injury inflicted by a legendary vampire slayer, almost chokes himself on a harmless cup of tea.”

Trevor had to smile at the taunting eulogy, and even Alucard’s eyes glinted with amusement despite the pinkish hue spreading on his cheeks. Trevor secretly found that shade of color oddly appealing on the vampire’s porcelain face.

Seeing as Alucard’s hands appeared to be steady, Trevor gave him space and went sitting on the ottoman, almost feeling the weight of the honey-colored gaze as it followed him.  

Sypha had resumed her sitting position on the bed, her shoulder touching with the vampire’s.

“So how do you feel?” she asked, her voice still bright but her expression sober.

Alucard sighed, lowering the half empty cup and closing his eyes.

“As if I was run over by a carriage, I suppose,” he said after a pause, shifting his weight so that he was pressed closer to Sypha. His voice still sounded a bit rough.

“But not even half as bad as…” he frowned, then glanced at Trevor.

“When was that?” he asked, eyebrows drawing together in perplexity.

“Yesterday,” the hunter offered, feeling as if he had lost ten years of his life overnight.

“You gave us a rough twenty-four hours,” confirmed Sypha, reaching for Alucard’s hand again.

The vampire seemed to think about it, his face contemplative. The way he was blinking owlishly suggested that what little energy he was currently relying on to stay awake was rapidly wearing out.

“Does the wound burn or something?” Sypha inquired again, doing a poor job at hiding the ever present concern.

Alucard shrugged.

“A little,” he confessed, eyes seeking out Trevor yet again.

“What did you do to it?” he asked, hints of genuine curiosity showing on his face despite the sleepiness muffling his reactions.

“Was that black magic?”

Trevor leaned forward and rested his crossed arms on the mattress, giving in to the impending desire of being closer.

Adrian’s sleepy face was never-before-seen and unexpectedly open. He had all his defenses down, no traces of his usual mask of coolness or the melancholy that normally stuck with him like the plague. Exhaustion had stripped him of his pride and his witty remarks, leaving him bare.

He looked very young, no traces of beard or lines on his perfect skin.

Cute was hardly an adjective Trevor associated with Adrian before - handsome, attractive, sinful, _yeah_ , but not cute, _never cute._

Yet, as the vampire openly looked at him with those liquid sleepy eyes, Trevor couldn’t deny how _cute_ he was and it was seriously impairing his ability of thinking straight.

“He treated the wound with consecrated ground from a cemetery,” Sypha anticipated his answer, clearly still finding the whole ordeal incredibly off-putting.

“...But first he mixed it with blood,” she added, grimacing at the memory. There was something in her tone that made those actions sound even more nasty and forbidden than they already were.

Trevor felt heat creep to his face. Had he been given the chance, he would have phrased the thing a little less crudely - or at least tried his best.

Alucard blinked a couple of times, his mind apparently struggling to process the information.

“So you rubbed terrain and decomposed bodies into my wound?” he asked after a pause, his attention solely for Trevor.

The hunter felt incredibly self-conscious despite the absolute lack of malicious intent from the vampire. Alucard just appeared… oddly intrigued for some reasons.

“Well, uhm,” he mumbled, but he was forced to break eye contact, his face growing even hotter.

“Yeah. Basically that’s what I did,” he confirmed, fairly sure that, at this point, beating around the bush was beyond useless. Damage had been done already, and even stone-faced Sypha was squirming at his side awaiting the vampire’s reaction.

Alucard lowered his eyes to the remnants of his tea, his long lashes fluttering delicately.

“Cool,” he muttered, a small smile tugging at his lips.

Trevor stared at him stupidly, insecure he had heard correctly.

“You’ll have to tell me where you got the idea from,” the vampire murmured drowsily, struggling against his heavy lids.

Dumbfounded, Trevor leaned even closer, now mostly convinced he wasn’t going to run into the vampire’s wrath.

He peered up at Alucard’s relaxed face, slightly tilted to the side, eyes closed. His golden lashes trembled just slightly.

“Sleep,” Sypha told him with a fond voice, perceptively retrieving the precarious cup from the vampire’s grasp.

“We will still be here when you wake up,” she reassured tenderly, squeezing his hand.

Alucard hummed softly, giving up his losing battle to stay awake.

At last his lashes stilled, his breath quietly evening out.

 

Adrian had been out for three days straight.

The thing wasn’t much worrisome per se, Trevor knew for a fact that Adrian could literally sleep for ages when he was well-fed.

The threat coming from the poisoned wound was still very much real, tho.

Trevor couldn’t be sure about how well Adrian’s system was reacting to the residual silver, and he was afraid some collateral damage had happened they weren’t yet aware of.

Unrelenting worry and pessimistic thoughts gnawing at his stomach, he couldn’t convince himself to leave the sleeping vampire unsupervised for longer than a few minutes.

Sypha had also lingered close by most of the time, only leaving Adrian’s room to check the castle’s surroundings, have a bath or put together some food for herself and Trevor.

They had originally decided to take turns by the vampire’s side, so that they could get some alone time to rest and unwind for a while, but even when Sypha was in charge to tend to Adrian, Trevor couldn't manage to push the thought of him out of his head.

Attempting to sleep a few hours in the room he’d been given downstairs was a pointless waste of energy, so he had set about sleeping on the blue ottoman in the dhampir’s room. Sypha had taken a page out of his book and done the same.

The moment had come when someone had to leave the castle and venture into the neighboring city, calculate the damages from the surprise attack and collect some information on the forgemasters’ whereabouts. The Horde might have retreated after Trevor had neutralized their ‘secret weapon’ last time, but they were aware of the castle’s defenses and its location now, and likely to strike a second attack the moment they least expected it.

Trevor wasn’t a fool and didn’t daresay anything different.

Sypha appeared extremely reluctant to abandon Alucard’s side, but she spontaneously offered for the task - which Trevor was extremely grateful for.

With her gone, the hunter just threw away the pretenses and went to lay down in bed at Adrian’s side. There was plenty of room for them both, after all.

He dozed off slightly around midday, naturally awakening when the sun shifted west and fell on the other side of the castle, throwing the room in shade.

Slowly opening his eyes, he was met by two attentive pools of liquid gold. The surprise was so great that his whole body went stiff, his breath hitching.

Adrian was laying quietly by his side, his face only a few centimeters from Trevor. He didn’t move or talk, his features relaxed, only his long lashes fluttering as his eyes regarded him closely. There was something glimmering in the depth of them, but Trevor wouldn’t know how to name it.

Collecting himself as quickly as he could, Trevor cleared his throat, working around the knot threatening to choke him.

“Hey,” he said, his voice coming out low and ragged.

Adrian’s eyes lowered momentarily to his mouth, but were back in his own before Trevor could be sure of what he saw.

“Thought you decided to sleep through the next century so that you didn’t have to put up with me anymore,” the taunt was something safe, something that made Trevor feel sheltered and in control.

Adrian’s face was an emotionless mask, but his eyes were smiling.

Trevor felt like a stray dog who’d been given the meager left-overs of yesterday’s meal.

He stretched his back slightly, trying to appear normal, struggling to hide how genuinely happy and relieved he felt.

The vampire still wasn’t talking, but Trevor could feel his full attention weighing on himself, and it was warming up his face.

“How are you?” Trevor decided to cut through the bull and approach him with a direct question.

Adrian didn’t answer immediately. He simply stared for a long while, to the point Trevor questioned whether he was going to answer at all.

“Did I make you worry, Belmont?” eventually he countered, his voice gentle.

Trevor didn’t know what the fuck was the point with that inquiry, since he was pretty sure the remnants of preoccupation and panic were still extremely visible on his face.

Raising both eyebrows, he reached out under the covers for Adrian’s waist and pressed a couple of delicate fingers over the bandages, were the wound supposedly marred the skin.

The vampire flinched minutely at the unexpected pressure, closing his eyes and accidentally giving Trevor time to regain some semblance of control.

The hunter let his fingers slide across Andrian’t flat abdomen and to his side, slowly gripping a narrow hip.

Treating the vampire with his same medicine, he decided he would let his eyes do the talking.

Adrian took in a sharp breath, tilting his face to hide part of it into the pillow. A curtain of golden strands instantly fell down, closing him off completely from Trevor’s scrutiny. The hunter pondered that maybe it was actually a benefit for them both.

There was a confused ball of emotions nested in Trevor’s chest, and he didn’t feel ready to address the issue, yet.

Instead, he slid his other arm over the mattress and placed it close to the mess of hair that was Adrian’s face, just shy of making contact.

“You got to eat,” he pointed out matter of factly, miraculously managing to maintain his voice steady and neutral.

The blond head shifted a bit, and Trevor fell into temptation. He reached out with his fingers, capturing a soft lock and moving it away from Adrian’s face.

The vampire’s exposed eye locked in earnest to the forearm Trevor shoved back in his face.

It took a little while, but ultimately the pieces clicked together in his little blood-sucker brain, and he was able to see Trevor’s offer for what it was. His visible eyebrow raising high on the furrowed forehead, he threw a disbelieving glance to Trevor’s face.

“Are you seriously offering?” Adrian questioned in a mockingly flat monotone.

Trevor rolled his eyes, torn between feeling valued and mortally offended.

He teasingly shoved his open palm in the vampire’s face, not deeming his alleged indignation worthy of an answer.

Adrian groaned lowly, probably annoyed at Trevor’s childish antics, then tilted his head up and swiftly licked at the open palm. Trevor couldn’t have retreated his limb faster if burned.

He held his wet hand close to his chest as if someone had slapped it away, embarrassment and irritation flaring within him as soon as he noticed the playful glint in Adrian’s eyes and the mischievous grin plastered on his face.

Man, he had totally let that giant mosquito play him.

“You are an asshole, you know that?” he reproached, even when he honestly was all but angry.

Adrian shrugged pretentiously, his expression clearly showing how much he was pleased with himself.

Trevor pushed his hand forward as if he was going to shove the vampire’s face again, but tilted his wrist instead, placing it squarely under Adrian’s nose.

He wiggled his eyebrows, as if to allude at his exposed wrist without having to go through the trouble of making his offer obvious once again.

Adrian's face sobered up, his eyes becoming inquisitive, suspicious. He scrutinized Trevor as if he was searching for something that would allow him to call the hunter out on his bullshit.

When he inevitably came to the conclusion that Trevor was indeed serious, he appeared to become demure all in a sudden, skirting backward on the mattress and avoiding eye contact at all cost. A slight shade of pink crept up his pale neck and colored his checks, noticeable even if Adrian was purposely keeping his face tilted downwards, so that it was partially hidden behind his long hair.

Unexpectedly, the vampire's sudden embarrassment proved to be contagious, because Trevor himself could feel his face growing hot for no particular reason.

_As if he had abruptly asked him to suck his dick and not his wrist._

He sighed, mentally slapping himself for the devious train of thoughts.

He peered up at Adrian’s half hidden face and fought against the impending desire to reach out and move away all that hair so that he could really see him.

“Giving me blood. Isn’t it against your swearing as a hunter?” Adrian’s voice was small, but he surely sounded as if he had thought the issue over way longer than Trevor did.

 _Yes, it was_ . Technically, the idea of nourishing a vampire with his own blood was against any codex written and unwritten, against his family and his personal beliefs and, arguably, also against that questionable thing people called _common sense_.

Trevor was beyond caring. Adrian needed blood and Trevor was willing to give it. That was all what mattered in Trevor’s head.

“I don’t care,” he told him honestly, shifting forward in bed to bring their bodies intimately closer.

“And I don’t get why you do.”

There was a small pause where Trevor almost expected to see smoke coming out the vampire’s ears from how hard the wheels of this brain were working.

“That is unless my blood tastes like shit. In that case I would totally understand why you don’t want to take it.”

The afterthought was out of Trevor’s mouth before he had the chance to put a filter between his thoughts and his blabbering furnace and, as embarrassing as it was, it managed to coax the desired reaction from Adrian.

The vampire’s body started shaking faintly, then the clear sound of his chuckle cut through the impending tension.

“There is nothing wrong with your blood,” he said a little breathless, eyes bright.

Trevor smiled too, finding Adrian’s merry laugh extremely enjoyable.

“Well, you actually threw it up. A man has to wonder…” he said in a mocking attempt to justify himself.

The vampire made a face but kept giggling softly.

In the end, he reached out for Trevor’s offered limb and laced their fingers together, his skin almost looking pearlescent because of the stark contrast with Trevor’s. The blisters on Adrian’s fingers were almost completely healed.

The vampire studied their joined fingers for a long while, eyes gentle, face pensive.

“Give me your other hand,” he demanded in due course, and Trevor saw no reason to deny him.

He held out his left hand for him, idly curious to see what was going on in the vampire’s mysterious mind.

With his greatest surprise, Adrian pushed him at his chest with impressive strength, forcing him to roll on his back. A mortifying squeak escaped Trevor’s throat at being manhandled, but it was instantly forgotten as Adrian slid close, guiding the hand he was holding around his waist.

Trevor became comically still, afraid of making any movement now that he had the vampire’s body pressed against his right side, his own right arm loosely embracing him.

Unbothered, Adrian laid his head on Trevor’s shoulder and reached for the left arm which was comically still stretched toward him, bringing it in front of his face for close examination.

Trevor didn’t dare looking at him, heart racing, eyes stubbornly focused to the ceiling.

He sensed a gentle touch on the recently injured skin of his wrist and fought against the pleasantly ticklish sensation.

“You didn’t have to injure yourself this badly for my sake,” Adrian’s voice whispered, and he gave the impression of being shy again.

“I am grateful you did, tho.”

Trevor didn’t expect to be thanked for his actions. When he cut his wrist open to give Adrian the blood he so desperately needed he had done it mainly for his inherently selfish desires. He had wanted Adrian to survive his injury and had been willing to give up everything to make it happen.

“Don’t even mention it,” he rasped, feeling Adrian’s fingers as they delicately slid up his forearm and toward his elbow, something else replacing their presence over his burnt scar.

Trevor recognized the touch of lips when he felt it - it was unmistakably soft and smooth, warm and just barely wet.

He knew it was Adrian’s way to really say thank you, but couldn’t help the hot shiver that rippled down his spine.

Closing his eyes and making an effort to keep his face emotionless and his body perfectly unmoving, Trevor desperately tried to think about something that wasn’t Adrian or the loving way they were embracing.

It was a moment of almost complete honesty between them, no friendly banter nor sarcasm, no useless pride keeping them apart. Adrian was glad to be alive and felt thankful for Trevor’s help, Trevor was glad he had helped.

That was all there was between them, no point in reading anything more in the situation. Trevor knew he and Adrian were friends, even if none of them was willing to voice it aloud.

The vampire’s fingers gently closed around Trevor’s elbow, dragging the sleeve of his shirt upwards. His soft lips trailed up until Trevor’s mid-forearm, tantalizingly grazing the skin. Trevor could clearly perceive the small puffs of warm breath warming up his blood.

“Would you let me bite?”

Adrian sounded dazed, breathless. The huskiness in his voice coiled something in Trevor’s belly, a desire that wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place.

Trevor bit his lips, unsure about what he was supposed to say.

As a hunter, his rational brain was fully aware that allowing vampire’s fangs to his skin was a terrible, terrible idea. As friendly as Adrian might be, he was still a natural predator and there was no guarantee of his reaction once he finally sunk his teeth into a prey. Furthermore, as far as Trevor’s knowledge went, there was no record about how a vampire-bite actually felt - probably because not many people were lucky enough to walk away alive and recount it.

Merely considering the size of Adrian’s canines, the experience was unlikely to be very pleasant.

But.

Inexplicably, despite all the notions Trevor’s brain could provide against it, there was a part of him - a curious, reckless part of him - that _honestly wanted to_ be bitten.

He knew it didn’t make any sense logically, but he had survived so many horrible things in the past that a stupid bite hardly sounded like risky business. And even if things went horribly wrong, nothing could convince him that Adrian - his open mouth on Trevor’s skin - wasn’t a gorgeous way to go.

_Trevor trusted him._

“Go for it,” he encouraged him, the words feeling like dry sand in his mouth.

He could have sworn he felt a ripple of excitement coming from the vampire.

Adrian slid even closer, to the point Trevor could perceive his whole body curled against his side, their naked feet touching.

He dared take a peek at Adrian’s expression and got caught by seductive honey colored eyes, burning on him, devouring him.

The vampire opened his lips against Trevor’s forearm, tentatively lapping at the skin, like a kitten tasting a new meal for the first time.

Trevor held the gaze, incapable to look away.

Adrian’s mouth laced on the skin, his long canines barely grazing it, sending a shiver up his arm and down his spine. His skin broke into goosebumps, anticipation finding its way among Trevor’s raging emotions.

Studying Trevor’s face for any sign of fear of doubt, the vampire carefully broke the skin and sunk his teeth in.

Trevor hissed at the sudden pain, but ought to admit he had sort of expected worse. The bite stung and burned slightly, the sensation very similar to the cut of a blade. He watched in fascination as Adrian applied some gentle suction, the skin under his mouth tingling. He could tell when his blood finally flowed into Adrian’s mouth because the vampire made a soft, delighted sound, his eyes fluttering closed.

At the same time, something funny started to happen to Trevor’s body. Heat seemed to flow into his arm and spread into his veins from Adrian’s mouth, his body welcoming it, muscles relaxing and turning into goo.

Next, pleasure shot through him, white and blazing, stealing his breath away.

Trevor was left gasping, his heart increasing its tempo, his nerve endings overstimulated and alight. His mind zeroed on Adrian, incapable of thinking about anything except how good Adrian was, how perfect Adrian was, fueling a craving for more of him, more of this.

He heard himself moaning as if he was a spectator outside his own body, felt the vampire answer with a desperate keening sound. It was the most erotic thing Trevor had ever heard and his mind struggled to keep it together, to fight the haze creeping into his logical thoughts, threatening to sink him under - in a sea of pleasure where nothing else existed.

Adrian was moving - gentle, loving arms came around Trevor's torso and caressed him, embraced him, tugged at his shirt.

Trevor tilted his head backwards into the pillow and willingly made room for him. His eyes were closed - _when did he close them?_ \- his lips parted, Adrian’s body was a burning furnace in his arms.

He wanted this moment to never end.

The mind-numbing pleasure vanished as abruptly as it started, Trevor’s body shivering in aftershock. He was left in a sort of cathartic limbo where confusion mixed with elation and desire.

A sensual mouth was kissing and lapping at his forearm, soothing a dull but enticing kind of pain, similar to a bruise - similar to a hickey.

Trevor felt safe and treasured and loved. He felt as though finally he was exactly where he belonged, in the arms of _his person,_ embraced by someone who worshiped him and made him whole.

He managed to lift his heavy lids to a slit, and tilted his head searching for the source of that surreal bliss.

He found a pair of dazed red eyes that immediately glimmered golden upon meeting his. Adrian was tenderly nuzzling his face against his arm, his cheeks flushed cutely and his lips bruised red. He looked debauched, his expression sated and giddy, his gaze adoring, playing with Trevor’s like a lover would.

Without consulting with his conscious mind, Trevor’s free hand found its way to Adrian’s painstakingly beautiful face, caressing the smoothness of his cheek and then sinking his fingers in soft blond strands.

His arm around Adrian’s waist had already tightened its hold and Trevor tugged the vampire closer. He pressed an emotional kiss to Adrian’s forehead and the dhampir hummed lowly, the sound reminding Trevor of a big cat’s purr.

Trevor felt like a reed at the mercy of the wind.

He hugged Adrian as close as humanly possible, torn between the desire to have him - to surrender and finally claim those tantalizing lips - and his resurfacing fears, his vulnerabilities, his sense of duty.

_Kiss him, kiss him, he’s practically begging for it._

Adrian tucked his head in the curve of Trevor’s neck, pressing an open-mouthed kiss at the juncture between his neck and shoulder.

_You know you want this._

Trevor squeezed his eyes closed, scattering away the devious thoughts, momentarily squashing the ever present sense of guilt.

His body was completely relaxed, his spirit felt soothed.

Sleep was hoovering in a corner of his consciousness, waiting for an opportunity to welcome him in the land where everything was allowed.

Trevor took in a deep breath, smelling warmth, blood and something else - something soothing.

He gladly allowed Morpheus to claim him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi people, how are you?
> 
> As you can see, things are getting physical very quickly!
> 
> I decided to post half of the chapter today (and I am planning to post the other half over the weekend, so that you don't have to wait too much!). My beta is super busy with more important matters (get well soon babe!), so you are left with my messy first-hand writing (EEEEUGH)!  
> Please don't kill me and feel free to point out eventual mistakes or things that don't make sense in that wonderful language that is English :)
> 
> The story is getting more angsty and touchy from now on... personally I can't wait!
> 
> I have read hundreds of stories involving vampire bites but it appears everyone has their own opinion about the connotation of biting and the sensation involved ... hope my personal interpretation didn't disappoint.
> 
> Love all of you, your kudos and your comments!  
> Feedback is always welcome as well as opinions and sheanigans.
> 
> Have a nice day!


	6. Boundaries? (Part Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still unbeta'd.

A few hours later, Trevor awoke tangled with half-naked limbs.

As soon as his eyes focused, providing an image of Adrian’s peacefully sleeping face a few inches from his own, Trevor’s mind was flooded with memories of the vampire feeding on him and the intimacy that had followed.

Panic and self-reproach instantly swelled in his chest, abruptly making him feel nauseous, and Trevor took in a calming breath, doing his best to temper the negative emotions.

Slowly and silently he forced himself to slid across the mattress, away from Adrian and out of the bed.

Mercifully, the vampire stirred minutely when Trevor shifted him but didn’t wake, probably still impaired from the injury and the consequent poisoning.

Trevor sat on the opposite side of the bed with his face in his hands, trying to make sense of the whole situation.

Actually, a vampire bite had proven to be a decidedly pleasant, mind-numbing experience. Trevor should have figured. He knew enough of vampire biology and lore that he shouldn't really be surprised.

Vampires were especially dangerous because everything about them was attractive to humans. Their looks, their voices, their natural grace...all of that was meant to enthrall a prey.

Even with their superhuman abilities, feeding on a victim would have proven messy and dangerous if the act of biting was extremely painful or unpleasant. It would have broken the spell.

Trevor smiled a sour smile.

If he had to compare the sensations he experienced when Adrian started feeding on him to something else, he would easily associate them to the elation of an extended orgasm. It was powerful and intense, only slightly less maddening and without all the messy consequences. Trevor's body had been left buzzing with endorphins in the aftermath, pliant and defenseless.

Also, and Trevor didn’t know how to explain this, the bite had established a sort of intimate connection between Adrian and him, a way for them to communicate without words.

Trevor didn’t know if the positive emotions he had experienced when the vampire laced to his forearm were an illusion cast to keep him quiet or a reflection of Adrian’s own, but it had been paradise.

Removing his hands from his face, he peered over his shoulder at the sleeping form of the dhampir.

Now that he knew all the implications behind a bite, Trevor understood why Adrian had been all shy when Trevor had suggested feeding from him.

Adrian obviously knew what was going to happen as soon as he sunk his fangs in Trevor’s flesh. He also knew he could have fed from Trevor _without_ biting him at all, but he still had asked for permission to do it. _He had sounded excited about it._

Trevor sensed heat creeping to his face.

He distantly wondered how the whole feeding ordeal felt for a vampire. Adrian had looked as dumbstruck and sated as Trevor probably did, his eyes flirty, his breath uneven. _So fucking gorgeous, Trevor had never_ \--

Thinking about it now Trevor didn’t know how he had managed not to kiss him. _Or to devour him_.

He groaned, covering his eyes with a palm. His cock - the treacherous bastard - was starting to show some deep interest in the situation.

It didn’t help that his mind chose that moment to remind him of Adrian’s small moans.

Trevor bolted from the bed and put a safe distance between him and Adrian’s resting body - just two or three meters _or something._

From the distance, the idyllic image of the slumbering youth languidly laying in bed - pale skin standing out against deep blue sheets, blond curls spread on the pillow - ironically made Trevor’s craving even worse.

He guessed he had a kink - _well_ , _sue him_.

Blood flowing southern against his command, Trevor decided he needed a bath and kicked himself out of Adrian’s room.

  


Hours later, he was sitting on the ottoman greasing the steel of his sword when Adrian stirred. As the bundle of covers started to unfurl, he immediately ceased any movement, straightening his back and holding his breath.

Nerves and insecurity were weighing upon him, making his hands sweaty.

_After what happened between them, what was Trevor supposed to say to him? Was he expected to do or say something at all?_

He fought against the blush threatening to spread on his face, cursing the erratic rhythm of his heart.

Adrian shifted slowly, his back to Trevor.

Trevor saw him stretch his arm and pat the mattress around him drowsily, almost as if he was searching for something, almost as if he expected…

The vampire sat up abruptly, inspecting the emptiness of his bed and the ruffled covers with a scurrying gaze, the confusion in his eyes rapidly morphing into fear and then into real panic, Adrian's shoulders visibly tensing.

Sitting dumbfounded on the sofa, Trevor almost couldn’t believe his eyes, barely refraining from gaping.

_Adrian was searching for him._

He had expected Trevor to be in bed with him - had Trevor given him that habit already? - and since he couldn’t find him he was _scared_.

_Scared about what? That Trevor was now afraid of him because he had seen his more vampiric side? Was he concerned about Trevor’s opinion?_

“Lost something?” Trevor teased lightly, studiously ignoring the tightness in his chest.

Adrian turned in his direction so fast that Trevor was afraid his neck would snap. The edge of panic and the trembling lips - a pouting child, he was - vanished as soon as Adrian’s eyes spotted him, his white hands gripping the sheets tightly in a poorly concealed display of nerves.

_Seemed like Trevor wasn’t the only one fighting a strenuous inner battle, after all._

Feeling slightly better about himself, the hunter smiled at him, affection and empathy warming up his gaze.

Adrian’s lips parted, his cheeks coloring pink - Trevor guessed he was probably embarrassed of himself for being caught fretting when he normally was impressively collected in most situations. He lowered his gaze, shying away from Trevor’s open scrutiny, but he eventually answered the smile.

He obviously wasn’t going to answer Trevor’s question.

The hunter tilted his head, grinning wider. He was experiencing some sadistic satisfaction from seeing the normally cool and self-assured vampire squirm shyly in front of his eyes.

Trevor had no doubts he was now facing the real Adrian, the most secretly guarded side of him. He felt stupidly privileged.

“Do you feel like eating something solid?” he demanded to divert the attention, seeing as Adrian’s cheeks became more and more colored by the second.

“Sypha’s cooking. She just got back from the village with a juicy piece of pork.”

Adrian dared to look at him, his whole behavior demure and in deep contrast with the sensual creature Trevor had embraced a few hours ago. It was fascinating.

Emotion swirling in golden eyes, the vampire shortly nodded.

Trevor felt deeply attracted to Adrian’s vampiric side, he couldn’t deny the evidence. But Adrian’s human side had him wrapped around his finger in a few seconds and it was _terrifying_.

  


“This tastes marvelous, Sypha," Alucard complimented, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed with a bowl of pork stew in his lap.

The sorceress patted him fondly on the head as she would have done with a particularly dangerous pet, smiling at him brightly.

“Thank you a lot, dear,” she cooed, at the same time throwing a reproaching glare over her shoulder at Trevor.

“See? Manners. That’s what I was talking about!”

Trevor raised his hands in the universal sign of surrender, a playful grin splitting his face. That was a recurrent source of bickering between Sypha and him, and the familiarity of the whole situation made him feel particularly comfortable.

He watched as Adrian chewed elegantly on a mouthful of savory meat, looking content, and peered up at the sorceress with vivid interest.

“What did you find out in town?”

Trevor felt as though he just fell from a tree face first. He had been so focused on thoughts of Adrian he had completely forgotten why Sypha had been forced to leave the castle and visit the city in first place.

Sypha sat on the edge of the bed, her gaze shifting rapidly from Alucard to Trevor, almost as if she was considering whether it was the case to bring up that subject or not.

She shrugged, composedly folding her hands in her lap.

“Sinaia is untouched. Apparently, the Horde didn't even walk through the place, which is really suspicious if you ask me."

Trevor agreed it was a rare occurrence, but he understood why Isaac and whoever advised him decided to avoid the settlement. The attack to the castle was meant to take them by surprise, striking when they felt most confident to be sheltered. Had the horde marched to Sinaia first, the smoke and the stench reeking off demons would have given away their approach.

“I am glad the villagers didn’t get in trouble because of us,” said Alucard, sounding relieved.

“Did anyone see anything?”

Sypha shook her head, looking apologetic.

“Not really, no. But a nice old lady who’s been reading tarots her whole life told me she foresaw the attack in a reading. She said she thought it a mistake of her old age because she’s never seen demons march under the sun before.”

Trevor had never heard about a similar occurrence either, and if Adrian’s perplexed expression was anything to go by, the dhampir also thought it strange.

“Therefore I bought some necessities and rushed back to the Hold, hoping to find some information on the matter there, but there was nothing in the historical archives. I almost was going to give up and leave the issue a mystery, when I accidentally found a book titled ‘The Noonday Demon'."

_Had Sypha really been away that long? Had she come back to the castle and disappeared in the Belmont Hold without Trevor even noticing?_

“Isn’t that a Biblical legend?” Adrian’s voice drew the hunter’s attention back to the topic.

“Yeah, it originally comes from Psalm 91:6 of the Hebrew Bible, but that’s not the point,” the sorceress quickly answered, apparently knowing exactly what the vampire was talking about – lucky her.

“The appendix of that book was full of mythology and folklore about demons and spirits that are supposedly diurnal. According to the druids, the walls between the human world and the other dimensions get thinner both at midnight _and midday_."

 _Well, that was bad news_. Trevor frowned.

“If so, how comes demons were never seen in daylight before?” he asked, the information making no sense in his mind.

Sypha bit her lower lip, fumbling with her hands.

“ I still have to figure it out, but if I am to guess it’s because of the sun. Isaac must have found a way to make the Night Creatures resistant to sunlight.”

There was a long, poignant pause, during which Trevor pondered the possible consequences of Sypha's discovery. In case she was right, they were still exposed to the risk of being ambushed at midday in the near future. Having absolutely no idea where the forge master's where hiding - potentially summoning new creatures this very minute - there was nothing they could do to stop them. And with Adrian still recovering, the perspectives didn't sound exactly promising.

The silence was broken by the sound of the empty bowl of stew being placed on the bedside table.

Alucard's face looked pensive, his brows were drawn together. He gripped the ornate headboard of the bed and resolutely made to stand up.

Both Trevor and Sypha were by his side the next second, arms outstretched to support him. The vampire sighed, trying to hide the smile tugging at his lips. His eyes were glimmering with mischief and something akin to fondness.

“You shouldn’t stress the wound, Alucard,” Sypha said gently, sliding smoothly by the vampire’s side and tucking herself under his arm.

Alucard looked down at her eyes full of worry, then shifted his gaze to Trevor’s tensed expression.

“I gotta pee,” he simply said, face straight and voice flat.

Sypha's cheeks instantly colored in red from a mixture of surprise and mortification and Trevor huffed good-humored, steadying the vampire's body with an arm around his waist.

“Now _this_ is gonna be an interesting experience,” he said sarcastically, ignoring the incinerating glowers Sypha was throwing his way.

Alucard hung his head a little, but didn't quite manage to hide his amused smirk.

“Since we are all huddled together tightly and being honest with each other, could someone care to explain to me why I am dressed in my mother's nightgown?" he said out of the blue, dragging a naked foot on the floor to emphasize the point, gracefully waving the hem of his skirt.

Trevor and Sypha exchanged a crap-we-are-fucked glance, but Trevor’s amusement at the situation significantly exceeded his fear of Adrian’s wrath.

He stood up taller, looking the vampire down his nose despite the slight height difference, and boldly said,

“It complimented your skin tone,” the mirth in his eyes not fully supporting his fake attempt at praise.

Sypha busted out laughing after three seconds sharp of holding her breath, causing a huge asshat grin to split Trevor’s face and throwing any pretense of maturity out of the window.

Alucard raised his brows at them, doing a decent job at concealing his own amusement, and dramatically put a hand on his chest as if he was genuinely flattered.

“Well thanks,” he said in mock appreciation, studiously smoothing the skirt of the gown.

“Certainly the drafts feel nice on my groin.”

 _That_ made Trevor crack-up definitely, his hand unconsciously shifting to the small of the vampire’s back. He felt Adrian’s body lean against him and started walking slowly toward the bathroom.

“Considering your usual taste in clothing, I would see you better in a corset," he teasingly told him among waves of laughter, and he was joking - _but not really._

“I don’t understand how you can move in such tight garments.”

Only when they reached the threshold of the adjoining room, Trevor eventually noticed Sypha had relinquished her hold on the dhampir.

He tilted his head to search her behind their backs, finding her lean figure standing against the footboard of the bed.

“Don't you want to join the party?" he asked her high-spirited, raising and lowering his eyebrows allusively.

Sypha smiled at him, but there was a weird glimmer in her azure eyes, her gaze more piercing than usual.

“Thank you but I’ll pass,” she said, dismissing him with her hand.

“Just go and do your boys’ things without me. Do you think you can manage?” she roasted them, glee in her tone.

Andrian leaned his head on Trevor’s shoulder, chuckling softly.

“Well, that was harsh,” he whispered, only for Trevor to hear.

After some maneuvering, they stepped into the bathroom embracing each other.

“You should see her when I forget to comb my hair,” Trevor told him, only making him cackle harder.

  


They talked and talked and talked for hours, but failed to come up with a counter-plan against Isaac. Adrian had fallen asleep again after the first hour or so of plotting and terse conversation, his vampire side taking over his human will and forcing him to rest and recover.

It was late at night again, the fire dying down in dimly glowing embers when Sypha stood up from the ottoman and stretched her sore back. She looked overtaxed and slightly discouraged, and Trevor's stomach tightened with guilt thinking about all the work she handled alone lately, in order to let him linger by Adrian's side.

“I know we should probably stay awake and alert, in case something decided to come for our asses again,” she mumbled, pausing for a spectacular yawn.

“But I need to sleep for a few hours and I advise you to do the same.”

She looked at Trevor with tired but warm eyes, methodically ignoring his disapproving grimace.

“The lady of the tarots didn’t see another attack in the reading she did for me. I don’t fully believe in this whole foreseeing thing, but I want to believe we will be safe for a few more hours at least,” she explained, smiling faintly.

Trevor said nothing, eyes on the carpet and lips drawn in a thin line. Fortune-tellers were normally not in his book of trustworthy people. Furthermore, it didn’t feel alright to let the guard down and the castle undefended, not when the legitimate heir of the place was out cold and fighting to recover from an injury.

“It would be nice if you'd lay down with me," Sypha's gentle voice said, attracting Trevor's attention. A corner of the sorceress' lips was tilted up in sort of half smile, but it was evident from her curved shoulders and the expression on her face that she covertly felt battered and craved for some comfort.

Trevor sighed. Many things had happened in a short amount of time and he was aware of the fact Sypha wasn’t used to deal with problems on her own.

_She wasn’t like him._

She was tough and sturdy and strong-willed, but she had never been alone in the world. At the moment she needed Trevor, _her partner Trevor Belmont_ , to be there for her and make it better. The hunter recognized he owed her.

He stood up from the edge of the bed, figuring it wouldn’t kill him to lay down with her and cuddle her until she fell asleep. He would stay awake and keep her and Adrian out of any danger, and he would take on his shoulders all of her burdens.

Putting a comforting hand between Sypha’s shoulders, he guided her to the door of Adrian’s room without any need for words.

Sypha smiled at him gratefully, touching his chest in a gesture that was both a thank you and a way to show her affection.

As they got out into the corridor, door half closed behind their back, Adrian’s voice called out pitifully.

“Trevor,” he said, and he sounded small and scared.

Both Trevor and Sypha stopped dead in their tracks, frozen, completely taken aback.

It was the same frightened voice Adrian had used when he was bleeding on the floor and sent a pang to Trevor’s heart.

_Adrian was calling for him as he had called for help with that letter he had sent him a long time ago. Trevor had already failed him once._

After a moment of hesitation, Trevor pushed the door open again and peered into the half-darkened room, spotting the dhampir curled up at the edge of the bed. He couldn't fully see his expression, but the orange glow of the embers reflected here and there on his face and Trevor thought for a second he was seeing tears streaming down his cheeks.

He wouldn’t know how long he lingered on the threshold, eyes wide and soul torn between rushing back into the room at Adrian’s side and walking away with the woman he was promised to, offering her the comfort she deserved.

His heart was beating furiously, drumming steadily in his head and hindering his ability to think straight, his stomach was upside down and tensed.

_What was Trevor Belmont expected to do?_

He wanted to be the man Sypha believed he was and he wanted to be the one soothing Adrian’s pain, chasing away his loneliness. He wanted to be there for them both.

A pang of guilt reminded him of his current predicament as Sypha's lover, of the future that was already planned for them, of his reputation as a hero, as a savior, as a Belmont.

His heart was screaming at him to get back into that damn room.

Unbalanced, he raised his eyes finding Sypha’s intent gaze.

He didn’t know what kind of expression he was wearing, unable to make a sense of the emotions battling within him. He felt like a sailor left alone to fend off a storm and as much as he tried to breathe he still felt like drowning.

The sorceress’ face was unreadable, sharp and absorbed, but after a bunch of seconds of eye contact she lowered her gaze and stepped out of Trevor’s personal space, breaking any physical contact between them.

“Go to him,” she said, taking a step away into the blue-lit corridor.

Freed from his emotional dilemma, Trevor didn’t even stop to think.

He was leaning over Adrian’s trembling form before his mind fully registered the words.

  


Trevor made porridge with honey and hazelnut crumbs for breakfast. He left a bowl outside the room he shared with Sypha, not wanting to walk in and wake her, then brought two of them upstairs to Adrian’s room.

Like the previous day at dinnertime, Adrian was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, hungrily waiting for something to fill his grumbling stomach with.

He smiled brightly as Trevor came back to the room, and outstretched his arms toward him, making grabby hands like a child. Trevor tried his best to choke down a laugh, but Adrian honestly made for a funny sight: _the almighty son of Dracula dressed in a frilly nightgown and reaching out like an overgrown chick for a Belmont to feed him._

Grinning stupidly, Trevor handed his share to the vampire and sat down beside him, kicking off his boots in the process.

Obviously, they hadn't talked about what happened that night, exactly as they hadn't talked about Adrian feeding off Trevor. By silent, mutual agreement, they acted as though none of those uncomfortable things had happened, ignoring the elephant in the room like the adults they supposedly were.

Not that anything strange had happened at all, it was just…

Trevor stopped stirring his oatmeal and secretly took a peek at Adrian’s face. The vampire didn’t mind him, focused as he was wolfing down his breakfast, his cheeks slightly puffy.

Trevor had noticed he was less composed and refined, less artificial when Sypha wasn’t around. Flawed and vulnerable and _human_ , Trevor liked him even more.

That night Adrian had been crying when he'd called for him. Trevor hadn't asked any questions and Adrian hadn't told him anything. Trevor had dried the vampire's tears with his thumbs and stroked his hair silently until he quieted and fell asleep again. After, he had considered laying down on the ottoman as he had done for countless nights recently but ended up slipping in bed beside him.

The idea of going downstairs and check on Sypha hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Trevor felt his cheeks grow hot from embarrassment and shame and resumed toying with his oatmeal, finally daring to spoon some of the greyish mush in his mouth.

It wasn’t half as bad as he’d expected - Trevor wasn’t exactly an experienced cook - and his lips curled in a satisfied grin around the mouthful.

They ate in companionable silence and Trevor collected both of their bowls when they finished.

“How’s the wound?” he asked absent-mindedly, momentarily resting the dishes on the writing table.

Adrian raised his arms above his head and tried a couple of experimental stretches, then tilted his head at Trevor, pondering.

“Good. Actually, I was thinking I should to go for a stroll and stretch my legs a little."

Trevor became aware of his openly disapproving expression only when Adrian’s face brightened in mirth.

“Oh, c’mon mommy,” the vampire-bastard teased, fluttering his long lashes in mockery.

“I promise I’ll be careful.”

Trevor walked back to the bed in a couple of long strides and treacherously tugged at a tuft of blond hair, just because it was the childish admonishment Adrian deserved.

The vampire hissed and scowled, making the little revenge gesture even more worthy.

“Belmont! You shouldn’t be this confident your daring stupidity doesn’t have consequences,” Adrian half growled as if to sound menacing, but his eyes were still clear and playful.

A huge smirk took over Trevor’s lips and he snorted, spitefully tugging at the blond lock a second time.

“You are basically a cripple,” he taunted mischievously, daring Adrian to say otherwise.

“Why in hell should I be conc--” but he couldn’t finish.

The next second he was laying with his back on the mattress of Adrian’s bed, blond hair shading his face and the vampire straddling his lap.

“You were saying?” Adrian whispered nose to nose with him, smiling a sly smile full of fangs.

It took a couple of seconds for Trevor’s word to turn itself over, but when it did, he was left struggling against his suddenly galloping heart.

Adrian was holding him down with his hands on Trevor's shoulders, his lips hovering at a kissable distance, his warm breath hitting Trevor's face in regular puffs. Trevor's hands had gripped Adrian's toned thighs on impulse, needing something to hold onto when his world had tilted.

He could feel naked, smooth skin under his palms and a single glance downwards confirmed that the nightgown Adrian was wearing had lifted upwards and folded at his waist, leaving his long, pale legs completely bare.

Trevor's blood ran cold then hot in the span of a second and he immediately averted his gaze, his eyes coming up to meet glimmering gold, a shade of emotion warming up the color.

Feeling exposed and bare under Adrian, he escaped eye contact lowering his lashes, his gaze accidentally landing on soft-hued pink lips, full and parted and so close - damn so close, Trevor could already taste them.

Apparently, now that Adrian's life wasn't in mortal danger anymore, Trevor's body had officially stopped considering him off limits and started seeing him as desirable again.

If possible, the crave was even worse now than before.

Breath hitching, Trevor tried to focus on tempering the potent wave of desire mercilessly washing over him.

The whole scene could very well come from one of Trevor’s wet dreams, and the fact that it was somehow familiar didn’t help Trevor’s self-control in the slightest.

His hands reflexively gripped Adrian’s thighs harder in a display of restraint and Trevor prayed a God who probably hated him he wouldn’t get a hard-on for being body-slammed on a mattress by the Prince Of Vampires.

He closed his eyes and waited, holding his breath, hoping his body wouldn’t betray him.

Adrian shifted gently above him, his soft locks tickling pleasantly Trevor’s neck and the side of his face, his warm breath hitting Trevor’s lips directly.

He felt the tip of Adrian’s nose brush delicately against his own, then something soft grazed his lips.

It was barely there, delicate like the fluttering of butterfly wings, but Trevor recognized the kiss for what it was and the alarm bells went off in his head.

Panicked, he shoved Adrian off his lap brusquely and jumped on his feet with agility and speed he wasn’t aware he possessed.

Bolting as far as he could from the mattress, he collected his boots and kept his gaze stubbornly lowered to the floor, his mind screaming at him, his stomach churning. Struggling, he willed his feet to walk the familiar path toward the door.

_Run. Run. Run. Run!_

And run he did.

A high-pitched whistle was ringing in his head and he was blind and numb to everything, but he wasn't deaf to Adrian's small sob as he walked away without turning back.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uhm. Please don't hate me?  
> Remember we have two chapters to go, and many things are still to happen.  
> Now we are seriously, seriously, getting to the emotional core of the story.
> 
> This second part of Ch.5 has not been corrected, so if you spot mistakes or anything strange, please let me know!
> 
> I am really curious about your reactions to this chapter, especially because I know I am creating some expectations about what's coming next.  
> Feedback, opinions and shaenigans are not only welcome, but also deeply appreciated.
> 
> Thanks a lot to all of you, I wish you a nice weekend!


	7. Thirst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now beta'd! Thanks to sasu--hime!

Trevor's legs didn't stop, leading him away without his conscious mind giving the command.

On autopilot, he walked briskly down the winding staircase, along the first-floor hallway, then down again and into the hall. He walked until he felt the pale morning sun rays warm up his skin, the soft breeze tousling his hair.

He still had trouble breathing, his lungs burning, his heart beating like crazy.

Blinking his eyes dazedly, as if coming out of a trance, he struggled to put together his scattered thoughts, his mind confused.

He realized abruptly that he was standing on the stoop just outside the castle’s massive portal, staring into the clearing separating it from the Belmont Hold. He couldn’t recall how or why he got there.

Taking in a deep breath of fresh air, Trevor dragged himself to the parapet, feeling the impending need to hold onto something solid. His legs felt wobbly, as if he were walking on water.

He leaned with his back against the hard stone, the coldness seeping into his skin through the thin linen of his shirt making him feel marginally better, grounded, more in control.

His eyes accidentally lowered to that spot atop of the monumental staircase where the stone was still heavily stained with dark-red blood. _Adrian’s blood._

Trevor felt like crumpling on himself and disappearing from this world.

He raised a shaky hand to nervously stroke the side of his neck, then laced his fingers into his hair.

He couldn’t believe this.

How in hell-

_How in the fucking hell!_

He shook his head, pressing his lips together.

_Why him? Everything seemed so absurd._

Physically, he wasn't anything special. He was barely in his twenties and his body was already wrecked and covered in countless scars. Years of bad habits had taken a toll on his appearance - and many of those bad habits were still proudly included in his everyday lifestyle.

Personality-wise he was probably even more unappealing; he was insufferable and gruff and rude. He was stubborn. He was gloomy and his tongue was sharper than his blades. Killing monsters was all he knew and all he seemed capable of doing.

He didn't see how someone could find any of his traits even remotely attractive, especially when _this someone_ was outwardly beautiful, inhumanly gifted and forever young - _and not even fucking human!_

Jaw tight, Trevor lifted his gaze to the terse blue sky.

In his relatively short life, he had bedded many partners, males and females. Sex had always been easy and fuelled by desperation - not attraction, rarely attraction. Trevor had been lonely, craving for some human contact to treat his emotional wounds.

With Sypha it was different because she was a gift and she was important. She had seen something in _Trevor Belmont_ , or so she told him, and Trevor had been trying his best to become a better version of himself, a man worthy of her.

_What did Adrian see in him?_

His hand lowered to tiredly massage his face, the stubble rough against his roughened palm.

Adrian had kissed him.

Despite all his dreams, never in this life would have Trevor imagined his attraction was returned. He had thought the vampire merely saw him as someone alike, a companion, a lost soul he could relate to.

_He had told himself Adrian had written that emotional letter to him out of loneliness and desperation._

Trevor chuckled darkly, unamused.

_Who was he kidding? Lying to himself wasn't that easy anymore._

To be honest, as far as awareness went, nothing had changed.

He still didn't understand why Adrian liked him, and he sure as fuck  didn't expect him to make a move, but he knew why Adrian had reached out to him that time he poured his heart on paper. He knew what his letter had meant.

It had been an offer.

_An offer that Trevor had minimized and then turned down because he was a coward._

A sigh escaped him, his hammering heart didn’t seem keen in slowing down.

Exactly like him, Adrian was determined and strong-minded, with the only difference that he was no craven. He was bold and straightforward and he went after what he wanted.

Now, though still unspoken, Adrian's desires were out in the open. Trevor couldn't feign ignorance anymore, couldn't write the issue off acting as if it was only a misunderstanding.

Inadvertently, Trevor had been drawing Adrian in for days on end - _what had he hoped for? That Adrian had grown out of him? That he would have respected the fact that Trevor officially belonged to Sypha?_

He had been selfish.

The fear of losing Adrian had made him reckless, driving him to act without considering the consequences.

Of course Adrian would have read his behavior for what it was. Possessiveness. Attraction. Desire. Longing. Of course he would have seen all of that, Adrian was smart.

Based on Trevor’s apparently open behavior, he had come to a decision and made his move.

Now it was Trevor’s turn to play, but Trevor was nauseous and paralyzed in fear and remorse.

Sypha’s face, with that open, affectionate smile she reserved for Trevor only, popped up in his mind. Guilt crushed his stomach mercilessly.

Trevor was so tired of himself, he felt like falling into pieces.

Sypha had plans for them. She had chosen him, loved him and respected him as if he were someone special. She had been so firm in her belief he was a man _worthy of love_ that for a while he had almost convinced him to think the same.

She was a powerful mage, extremely respected among her people and throughout the whole Wallachia.

She wanted a future with Trevor Belmont.

The hunter bit his lip, lowering his gaze to scour the grassy field that blended into the forest.

Some demon remains and monster carcasses were still rotting under the sun - the few of them Sypha didn’t find enough time or energy to burn to ashes. He wondered vaguely what the sorceress had done with Van Helsing’s body.

The mere name of the man unleashed a wild, raging beast in Trevor's chest. Rationally, he knew the vampire slayer couldn't be considered directly responsible for his actions. In truth, he was long dead and he had clearly been resurrected and manipulated to fit a purpose.

Trevor wondered, however, if things would have gone differently in case Abraham Van Helsing had been his old self, conscious and still alive.

Like Trevor, the man had been raised in the conviction that all Night Creatures were abominations in the eyes of God and mortal enemies of mankind.

 _'It is them or us_ ,' Trevor's mother used to tell him when he was little and still had a conscience. The rule admitted no exception – _don't trust them, they are treacherous and cunning, they will turn against you. It's in their nature. Slay them down, kill them all._

Adrian was a vampire.

A half-vampire, as he cared to specify, but it didn't change the fact that Dracula's blood ran in his veins.

Had Van Helsing been alive and self-aware, he would have attacked and aimed to kill him nonetheless. Exactly like Trevor was supposed to do, according to his upbringing.

Trevor felt his eyes sting and he gripped the parapet behind his back with such a force he was afraid the stone would crumble.

He thought about the way Adrian's eyes had searched for him as he lay dying on the floor.

Trevor remembered very well how he had felt, as if his own world was breaking apart, all colors bleeding away and mixing with the red of Adrian's blood.

He was probably the worst Belmont ever existed and his ancestors were probably rolling in their grave.

_Kill them all._

But Trevor could never ever kill Adrian nor watch him die, for that matter. The pressure in his chest threatened to choke him at the very idea.

Adrian was a friend – he was precious, he was special, he was Trevor’s-

Warmness spreading through his chest and on his face, Trevor harshly severed that train of thought.

He was forced to close his eyes, trying to focus. The longing he was experiencing was _that bad._

He recalled the lone, heart-wrenching sound he'd heard coming from Adrian's room as he left after pushing him away.

His stomach constricted painfully, threatening to spill its content on the tiles, with or without Trevor's permission.

Even when he had no malicious intentions toward _that particular vampire_ , it looked like he was only able to hurt him.

  


Trevor stayed outside the whole day, taking advantage of the fact that bodies needed to be burned and buried.

He had ingenuously assumed that having something practical and obviously unappealing to do would have helped him keep his mind off thoughts of Adrian and what had happened in the morning. Saying it had not been working was a huge understatement.

Trevor felt drained as he had never felt before, contrasting emotions crashing over him in waves, wearing him down.

It didn’t matter how horrid or repetitive his self-appointed task could be. When he closed his eyes he could still perceive the gentle pressure of Adrian's body against his own, the smoothness of his skin, the softness of his hair.

He could taste him on his lips, however faintly.

At the same time, guilt plagued him for urging Adrian on and betraying Sypha’s trust over and over - especially in his head.

His undeniable attraction for a vampire fuelled his familiar and ever-present sense of unworthiness - of his ancestors and of his newly-found fame as a demon hunter and as a hero.

Moreover, he felt like scum for the abrupt way he had turned Adrian down and stormed out of the man's room. He felt frightened by his desires, and even he was completely terrified by the fact they were openly returned. He was disappointed in himself and he felt like a _failure_.

_As a man. As a hunter. As a friend._

And as if this wasn't enough of a mess, he had absolutely no idea how to fix it.

Trevor had been alone for such a long time, he reasoned he probably wasn't used to empathizing with people anymore.

Sypha and Adrian were the first two pals he sincerely cared about and cherished since childhood - so he had years and years of stubborn loneliness as his only behavioral reference.

He wanted to keep them and to be good for them, but he didn’t know what to do. He had no idea what to do with himself.

He finally found the guts to venture back to the castle only when the sun sunk over the horizon, its last tilted rays coloring the sky in red and purple.

Avoiding all the common spaces, he went directly to the room he shared with Sypha, aiming to get a bath and - hopefully - to wash away some of the loathing he felt for himself.

When the sorceress later came to fetch him and proposed to have dinner upstairs, the three of them together, Trevor came up with an excuse and said he was tired and in need of some rest.

Sypha lingered in the threshold for a long while, watching him with those assessing, suspicious eyes, before giving in and disappearing down the corridor.

Trevor knew she could smell something was wrong with him. She knew him fairly well after all, and there was just a small amount of information Trevor could keep from her.

Raising his tired arms, he donned a clean shirt and walked to the bed.

He just wished he could turn off his feelings and become as numb as he was before this prophecy thing messed up his life.

  


When Sypha came back to their quarters later that night, there was something in her gait that immediately alerted Trevor she had thoughts she wanted to share - and she clearly wasn’t pleased about something.

Like the coward he was, Trevor purposely kept his eyes closed and his breathing pattern even, pretending he was fast asleep.

The sorceress walked resolutely to his side of the bed and stood there, inspecting him in silence. Trevor knew she was debating whether to wake him or to have mercy on him and postpone the upcoming argument until tomorrow. Apparently, her gentle heart prompted her to be patient, because she undressed and slipped in bed beside Trevor.

She quickly fell asleep on her side of the mattress. Trevor hated himself some more for this thought, but he was grateful about that.

  


He was surprised Sypha wasn't in bed when he awoke the following morning. His body felt as though he had fallen asleep on rocky ground, his bones hurting, his head pounding.

After hours of tortuous thoughts and gut-twisting nerves, he had eventually drifted off when the night had started dragging into dawn, likely too exhausted to deal with himself any further.

He hadn't heard Sypha get out of bed nor leave the room.

Grunting, he rolled to the edge of the mattress, searching for a good reason not to stay where he was and hopefully die.

He found none.

In all honesty, he wasn't in the mood to confront Sypha about whatever it was that annoyed her the previous night and he obviously didn't feel ready to risk meeting Adrian as he wandered through the castle. What could he tell the guy? How could he even meet his eyes after rejecting him that way?

‘ _Sorry man, I am a fucker. I like you a bit too much but I am aware you’re not meant for me.’_

Trevor pressed his face into the pillow in a vain attempt to choke himself.

‘A bit too much' was definitely an undermining expression, Trevor was aware of that and had probably been aware the whole time. Hell, he'd been dreaming about the vampire nonstop for over a year!

He’d been good at denying it, somehow.

However, now that Adrian had made clear how he felt, it was as if Trevor’s ability to brilliantly lie to himself had suddenly decided to catch a break. _What a wonderful timing_.

It was risky. Extremely risky, actually. Because Trevor, he didn’t know how all these things, this _attraction_ between them, had happened but he knew something about himself.

Had his own... _desires (feelings? what was the proper word?)_ fallen into the void, maybe he could have managed to squash them, one day. But this way, with a receptive Adrian on the other end…

He rolled onto his back, spreading his arms and legs on the mattress like a star.

He just couldn’t. He just...man, he was a mess.

Frowning, he tiredly rubbed the bridge of his nose.

He’d never had two people interested in him at the same time before. How ironic was that?

A set of blurry, half-drunken images came forth in his memories and he had to correct himself.

 _He’d never had two people interested in him as someone to keep at the same time before_ (in other words people who he couldn’t fuck simultaneously).

He grimaced, a voice in his head timidly suggesting he should probably be ashamed of himself and his depraved shenanigans.

He shrugged, contemplating the wooden ceiling of the canopy bed.

Nah, that had been fun. He already had enough valid reasons to feel ashamed, after all. Which brought his mind back to his current predicament and on musings about how spineless he was.

He couldn't help but wonder, in the back of his mind, how Adrian was dealing with the whole situation.

Trevor’s stomach churned, the sense of nausea coming back with a vengeance.

The vampire was probably alright, he mused. He’d got so much horrible shit to deal with in the last years of his life that it surely wouldn’t be Trevor’s rejection that would bring him down.

Or so he hoped.

His chest hurt at the thought.

Trevor tilted his head to the side, watching the small particles of dust dancing in the tilted rays of sunlight.

Considering he'd skipped dinner he should probably make it to the kitchen and eat something, but his stomach was aching and felt as if someone had beaten it to mush.

Feeling pathetic, he pushed himself into a sitting position.

Maybe he could find something more useful, somewhere among the provisions.

  


The kitchen was empty, no traces of Sypha or signs of life whatsoever. The silence was so utter and imposing it was almost a physical presence by the hunter’s side.

Trevor had been searching the cupboards for ale or wine, but he surely wasn't going to complain when he found a still sealed stash of Pălincă.

Without bothering to retrieve a glass from the shelf, he walked to the wooden table, holding the neck of the tall bottle, and flopped down inelegantly on one of the benches. He uncorked the spirit without even bothering to take a second look at the label, eyes glued on the tall secular trees visible from the window.

He brought the bottle under his nose and took a whiff, his extensive experience with alcohol immediately telling him he wasn't dealing with piss-poor stuff but high-quality liquor. It smelled like sugar and steeped fruit and like liquid happiness. Right now, Trevor saw it as the universal solution to all his problems and aches.

He just needed to tune down his mind and his emotions a little bit, nothing more. Guilt and tension were exhausting; failure was rather difficult to deal with - for Trevor especially. He just needed a break, a moment to regain forces.

Searing his lips around the bottle opening without further hesitation, he tilted his head back and gulped down a modest sip, allowing the spirit to linger in his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing it.

The taste was strong, sweet at the beginning - like a caress, a fake assuredness - then bitter and woody. It burned his tongue and his throat and warmed up his chest.

It was exactly what Trevor needed.

He took a larger sip - or a couple of them - planting one elbow onto the table and letting himself fall back in a very familiar pattern, one which had allowed him to survive his disgraced teenage years.

Drinking was always a safe bet, a blessing from above. It felt soothing, calming and at the same time invigorating. It gave Trevor the illusion of power and control, the two things he most desired and never had been able to gain. It also made things look less dirty, miserable or desperate, gave new light and direction to his gloomy train of thoughts.

He took another swig, then two smaller ones. The burn of the alcohol in his mouth was starting to numb him, inhibiting his sense of taste.

Good. Trevor had learned to enjoy being numb a long time ago.

Unceremoniously, he rested the already half-empty bottle atop the table, the liquid inside swirling within the glass walls. It was clear and golden, with some honey colored veins.

It reminded him of Adrian’s eyes.

Trevor sniffed, brushing the back of his hand under his nose.

It was the most beautiful color he’d ever seen.

  


Regrettably, Sypha found him passed out with his forehead pressed against the rough surface of the kitchen table.

He stirred and marginally came to his senses when she touched his face with her cool hands, and fought against the heaviness of his lids to open his eyes to a slit.

He must be looking like an utter wreck, he mused, to elicit such worry in Sypha's eyes.

The sorceress was telling him something, her tone agitated, but Trevor's mind was playing tricks on him and turning his hearing on and off, letting him catch only a few words and the general intent behind the discourse.

Apparently catching up with his state of disconnection, Sypha leaned over his shoulder and retrieved the bottle sitting in front him on the table, the few remaining ounces of liquid ember sloshing inside the container and arousing Trevor’s thirst.

Sypha glared at the label on the bottle as if she could incinerate the thing with her eyes, then dropped the liquor back on the table with open disgust - _damn, the noise was so…_

Trevor pressed his eyes closed and furrowed his forehead, a burning hot blade splitting his head in a half.

“If anything, it explains why you smell like a brewery,” he heard the sorceress mumble, and the soothing cool fingers came back, caressing his cheeks and his forehead, and Trevor sighed in relief.

He leaned his face into the contact like a puppy starved of affection and Sypha combed her fingers through his hair gently.

Peering up at her, Trevor noticed she looked quite sad and pensive rather than angry, as she normally was - and honestly had every right to be - when he came home drunk.

Her eyes were unusually liquid and there was a glint in them, a sort of pained awareness that had Trevor's hair standing on end despite his level of intoxication.

“C’mon you stinky drunkard,” she said, leaning down to wrap her arms around Trevor’s chest.

“Let’s get you into bed.”

Trevor had no idea what time it was, but he noticed it was already getting dark outside. The day had apparently slipped through his fingers as easily as Pălincă went down his throat.

Sypha tugged him to help him stand and Trevor seriously did his best to comply, but his legs seemed to have a mind of their own. He wobbled and tripped on his own feet, his stomach all but happy about the sudden movements.

Nausea hit him like a slap in the face and Trevor was forced to bend in a half, hands resting just above his knees, and close his eyes trying to push down the impulse to vomit.

He felt Sypha's blessed hands stroke between his shoulder blades and tried to focus on that pleasant sensation, but a second retching made his efforts be in vain.

He threw up, spilling bile and alcohol on the wooden floor of a kitchen where he was guest, _so much for honoring his new reputation_.

Emptying his stomach was a relatively quick process, given he only had the liquor down.

When it was over and Trevor had stopped dry heaving - man, that was always the worst part - he hastily cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand.

Mindlessly, he noticed he’d stained his boots.

The ever practical Sypha unceremoniously grasped him from under his armpit and forced him to stand more or less straight - _such a fierce, wonderful woman, what was wrong with Trevor who couldn’t love her?_

“‘M sory Sypha," he slurred, but she dismissed him and shook her head. She probably thought he was apologizing for forcing her to witness his pitiful puking scene, but it wasn't what Trevor meant.

She circled an arm around his waist and slowly walked him toward their bedroom, pausing their march and waiting for him every time he tripped or was forced to bend by another wave of nausea.

Despite the trip to their quarters was rather long - it surely took plenty of time - he managed not to vomit again.

When Sypha finally had him sprawled horizontally on the bed, the room around him started spinning and crumbling on itself.

Groaning, Trevor was forced to close his eyes.

“I am going to get you some water, okay?” she said quietly, affectionately squeezing Trevor’s hand.

“I am no expert, but I guess it’s better if you sleep this off.”

Trevor nodded, or at least tried to. Her hand left him, but he could still sense her presence in the room.

“Is Adrian ‘kay?”

The drawled out question was out of his mouth without his brain registering it.

Had Trevor been more lucid, he wouldn’t have missed the small gasp escaping Sypha’s tightly pressed lips.

“M so sory... Hope Adrian’s ‘kay,” he mumbled instead, his chest suddenly tight with guilt.

Sypha’s light footsteps got fainter as she walked away.

  


For the second night in a raw, his sleep was disturbed but dreamless.

He awoke mid-morning of the following day with what felt like the worst hangover in hangovers history.

Again, he was alone in bed and alone in the room.

Trevor didn’t mind it, as he was in no condition to face Sypha and more than embarrassed for the stunt he’d pulled. Apparently, he was bound to make an ass of himself with both the people who mattered in his life. Such a pathologic case of idiocy, he was. Delightful.

Carelessly, he slapped a palm on his face, meaning to punish himself and shield his sensitive eyes from the light.

His head hurt like a bitch and his mouth was drier than a desert, but he had honestly expected that.

Distantly, Trevor realized Sypha had never come back with the glass of water she had promised. Or maybe she had but he was asleep already by then.

Pulling a disappointed grimace at the weird thought, Trevor started moving his fingers in small circular motions on his forehead, hoping to will away the pounding in his temples.

He wouldn’t hold it against Sypha if she had gotten fed up of him. She had every right in the world to be annoyed or mad. He was acting like a child, creating problems and not taking responsibility for any of them.

Sighing, Trevor dragged his sorry ass into a sitting position, resting his aching head against the cool, wooden surface of the headboard. His stomach growled and protested, but Trevor wasn’t sure whether it was because he hadn’t been eating in two days or a consequence of the previous day alcohol spree.

He ignored it and slipped his legs out of bed, getting up carefully, trying to assess the damage he’d brought upon his body. His legs felt a little wobbly, but his thoughts were lucid (sadly) and his reflexes and equilibrium seemed alright. He could work with that.

He dragged himself to the bathroom, bent over the basin and drank greedily, directly from the faucet. The coolness of the water helped against that slight dizziness still bothering him, so he collected some and splashed it onto his face.

The weather outside the window seemed particularly bright, and Trevor pondered he wouldn’t mind being outside the oppressive walls of the castle for a while.

Some wood needed to be chopped for the fireplaces, especially the one in the library. Maybe doing something useful would help him feel marginally better about himself.

And if there was something he had learned in years of experience with alcohol, it was that nothing was better than some movement to work it out of his system.

Firm in his new resolve, Trevor straightened his clothes and exited his rooms, trudging along the corridor and taking the main stairs to the hall.

He almost bumped into Sypha halfway through the stairs, the sorceress' eyes focused on the open book in her hands, her face enraptured.

She squeaked in surprise when Trevor’s looming figure entered her field of vision and she raised her gaze to meet his.

Trevor did his best to offer her a smile, but he wasn’t sure about the final result.

Sypha regarded him closely, embracing the book she was previously reading.

“You're up," she said. She didn't sound angry or disapproving or nothing.

Trevor nodded briefly.

“Yeah. About time, I guess.”

He scratched the back of his neck, uneasiness creeping up his spine.

Sypha tilted her head, her eyes openly searching him.

“Would you like to talk?” she offered after a pause. She appeared strangely stiff and collected, but her eyes revealed a hint of worry that made Trevor hope he hadn’t messed up too badly.

However, talking was definitely the last thing he was willing to do at the moment.

“I’m fine Sypha,” he answered, trying to refine his posture to prove the point.

It was a lie, obviously. But he wasn’t ready for the truth and he absolutely wasn’t ready to confront Sypha about it.

“I was going outside to catch some fresh air and do something useful. We’re running out of woods for the fire.”

Sypha raised both eyebrows, easily noticing how he’d rushed to change the topic. She seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but in the end she sighed and averted her gaze.

“I will be in the library if you change your mind," she said, sidestepping him smoothly and resuming her march to the first floor.

Trevor knew her enough to understand she was giving him space and a chance to act like an adult. She was obviously aware something was out of place, but since she was mature and understanding, she wasn’t pushing the issue.

Trevor’s shoulders sagged, his eyes dropping down to his vomit-stained boots.

He was inevitably going to disappoint her again.

  


As Sypha and Trevor were having breakfast in a tensed silence, on the third day after Trevor had majestically fucked up his life, Adrian made his appearance into the kitchen.

Trevor almost dropped his spoon when he spotted him walking through the threshold, his whole body immediately going stiff with tension.

Unlike Trevor, Adrian looked perfectly fine and unbothered - to be fair, he looked absolutely gorgeous. He was back in his custom skin-tight clothes - a pair of riding pants, one of his many expensive-looking shirts, thigh-high leather boots. He had his hair neatly braided and the spotless face of a doll.

Trevor couldn’t help but stare as the vampire reached inside a cupboard and quietly retrieved an apple, perfectly ripe and blood red.

He abruptly forced his mouth closed when he realized he was gaping (ogling was the more correct term, but Trevor was _not_ going to use it), and averted his gaze, ashamed of himself.

Adrian walked to the table with his breakfast in hand and elegantly sat down beside Sypha, directly in front of Trevor.

“Morning Alucard,” Sypha mumbled, chewing quietly on a piece of bread.

The vampire touched her back gently as an acknowledgment and took a bite from the apple. Trevor peeked in his direction at the following cruniching sound, watching in morbid fascination as Adrian’s long fangs sunk effortlessly into the juicy fruit.

The image only served to remind him of those circumstances in which Adrian’s fangs had pierced his own skin, arousal stirring in his groin at the memory.

Feeling self-conscious and out of place, he squirmed, trying to find a more comfortable position on the bench.

“How’s your wound today?” Sypha’s voice luckily distracted him from the dangerous train of thoughts.

Genuinely interested to hear the vampire’s response, Trevor faked indifference but listened closely.

Adrian shrugged, his regal composure unperturbed.

“It's a memory already," he bluntly answered, his voice flat. He was looking straight ahead of himself, at the pantry behind Trevor's back. His face was a mask of indifference, perfect and emotionless.

“Hector was seen in Braşov," the vampire continued, changing the topic as if he considered the previous conversation officially closed.

The name of the second forgemaster of Dracula’s horde made Sypha stand on attention and likely convinced her to put off further conversation on Adrian’s condition for the time being.

“My bet is that he and Isaac are actually traveling together. Isaac would surely need some help to evoke a new army."

Sypha nodded tersely, her lips a thin line on her face.

“What should we do, then?” she demanded, her eyes stern.

Adrian spared her a glance, then lowered his eyes.

“You don’t need to do anything, so far. I am going to check if the voices are true.”

Lips turning downward in an open show of displease, Sypha turned to face him.

“Does this mean you’d go alone?” she asked, severe. “I don’t think you should travel at all. It’s not safe yet.”

Trevor was stubbornly keeping his mouth shut, but he was grateful Sypha felt compelled to play the voice of reason, at least.

Adrian’s face grew somber.

“I am perfectly healed, Sypha,” he told her, sounding unruffled. “I travel faster when I am alone. Furthermore, I don’t trust leaving the castle unguarded. This place hosts many secrets and has a deep symbolic value among Night Creatures.”

As much as Trevor didn’t like it, the vampire had a point.

“Braşov is forty to fifty kilometers from here,” Trevor couldn’t refrain from saying, the words escaping his mouth. “Under the sun,” he added after a pause.

“Better if I go, instead.”

Trevor wasn’t looking at Adrian - he couldn’t - so he missed the spark of emotion passing through his face.

The vampire dropped the barely touched apple on the table, nimbly standing on his feet.

“Please, take care of the castle," he told Sypha, waiting for her acknowledgment.

After a brief hesitation, she nodded, sighing in defeat.

“Be careful,” she told Adrian.

The dhampir touched her shoulder in a gesture that was probably reassurance, then strolled out of the room without making a sound.

His eyes hadn't sought out Trevor not even once, and even when Trevor had talked, Adrian had acted as if he hadn't been in the room at all. He had interacted with Sypha and acquiesced Sypha only.

Trevor didn’t know why, but it burned.

Something inside his chest ached, his stomach suddenly closing.

Sypha reached out on the table for Adrian’s discarded apple and sighed even more deeply.

Looking into his almost empty bowl of milk-soaked bread, Trevor could feel her eyes on himself, silently questioning.

Trevor couldn’t stand it.

He stood up with his leftovers and walked to the sink to wash off the dishes, grateful he had an excuse to turn his shoulders to her scrutiny.

He left the bowl upside down on the counter to dry, then his attention was caught by movements outside the main window and he got a glance of a big white wolf disappearing into the forest. Only, Trevor knew all too well it wasn't a wolf.

Contrasting emotion fought inside his stomach, his mouth running dry.

Swallowing onto nothing, he headed for the door.

“Trevor,” Sypha called him, reprimand in her voice.

Her patience was reaching its limit, Trevor was aware of that. However, he couldn’t deal with her at the moment - he couldn’t deal with anything.

He wasn’t ready.

“I am heading down in my family’s hall,” he told her, only because it seemed fair.

“I need some time to think.”

It wasn’t a lie. Maybe the first sincere thing he had told her in a long while.

Sypha huffed lightly, clearly disappointed. She took a bite from the apple that had been Adrian’s, her regular, human teeth barely sinking in.

“Do whatever the fuck you want,” she murmured, and despite the harsh words she didn’t sound exactly angry, more like defeated and disillusioned.

Trevor looked at her - really looked at her - and finally noticed the dark bags under her eyes and her unkempt appearance.

Shame and guilt threatened to steal his breath, so he did the thing he apparently did best.

He ran.

  


The passage to the underground lair opened spontaneously as soon as he approached - thankfully, or Trevor wouldn’t have gotten any idea on how to get in.

He didn’t know what mysterious force had prompted him to descend into his family’s only legacy, but he was absolutely stunned to find the place completely restored and in perfect order, no signs of damage from their epic battle in sight.

Adrian must have put a lot of work into fixing it.

The thought spread a pleasant, warm sensation in Trevor’s chest.

The castle had been cleaned up, but it was crystal clear it had seen better days. _Did that mean that Adrian had favored The Hold, the Belmont’s secret keep, over his own childhood home? Why should he?_

The torches turned on progressively as Trevor walked down the new set of stairs, memories of his past fluttering behind his lids like pale ghosts.

The library was magnificent, exactly as he remembered it from his childhood. The fallen shelves had been straightened and the broken ones replaced. There was barely any dust covering the displayers, no spiderwebs in sight. The place was clearly well kept and lived in. For some unfathomable reason, Trevor felt tears forming at the corner of his eyes.

He gulped down the knot in his throat and pushed them back, walking to the library index at the center of the main hall.

Gently turning the old pages of the tome, he scurried through the voices searching for the books about his family's bloodline.

Following the index directions, he found himself walking through a wide aisle more similar to a trophy gallery than to an archive of knowledge. Skeletons of Creatures of the Night and stuffed beasts were put on display in the cases, together with jars containing creepy body parts and alchemical ingredients.

Coincidentally, the section accommodating the annals with his family history was located right in front of the shelves holding the skulls and reliques of the many vampires the Belmonts had slaughtered over the centuries.

A horrid, heavy sensation set in the pit of Trevor’s stomach, but he tried to ignore it, focusing his attention on the many books on the deeds of his clan.

He retrieved a small, ancient-looking volume from the top shelf, discovering it was written by Luis Belmont, one of Leon's sons, if he remembered correctly.

The neat, elegant handwriting was interrupted here and there by illustrations and sketches, the structure of the book suggesting it was a diary of sorts. It was written in French, but that was no hindrance for Trevor, since Belmonts had kept French as their mother tongue through generations.

Intrigued, he opened the book at a random page and started reading passages out of it. It seemed a great idea to keep his mind off pressing issues, and also to better understand what really meant to bear his last name.

This Luis appeared to be a very religious and dedicated guy, which was no surprise considering that his father Leon had fought a few crusades in name of the church.

Centuries later, all of that faith in God and in ' _men created in God’s own image_ ' was a bit sickening for Trevor.

Common folk and the church had slaughtered Trevor’s whole family in their own beds, no monster or Night Creature involved - so much for being grateful of the Belmont’s protection throughout the centuries.

Trevor had escaped the massacre out of sheer luck; that night he had gone sleeping in his secret hiding spot on top of his favorite tree after an argument with his mother. He'd been awakened by the thick, dark smoke, the high flames coloring the night sky in orange, but when he'd managed to reach his family home he was too late to be of any help.

Actually, he had been forced to run in order to avoid being lynched right then and there - and man, had it been a narrow run. Unconsciously, Trevor’s left hand lifted to touch the long scar running across the left side of his face.

He sighed and turned a few pages.

He’d been a child back then. He remembered very well the helpless fear and the sheer desperation befallen upon him.

The painful memories only brought back his thirst for a drink and he fought against it, focusing back on the diary in his hands.

He stopped flicking through it when he found the incredibly detailed portrait of a remarkably beautiful woman. The note under the pencil-drawn bust said Katharina had been her name.

Curious, Trevor read quickly through the following pages, only to discover that the woman had been a vampire blended within the aristocracy, and Luis had haunted and killed her. He had run her through with a blade and beheaded her even though she'd been begging for mercy and promising she meant no harm. All of that because, in Luis' own words, ‘ _she was simply an abhorrent creature who knew no God nor honesty, a taint to this world’_.

Trevor snapped the volume closed, his stomach compressing unpleasantly, and hastily shoved it back to the shelf.

_Was that the essence of being a Belmont? Killing off creatures begging for mercy in name of a God who apparently hated them all?_

Feeling suddenly heavy and energy drained, Trevor leaned over the bookcase, his hands resting on the hardwood.

Something caustic like acid was bubbling into his stomach, his chest feeling tight.

His family’s motto resounded in his head like the voice of a desperate man screaming into the void: ‘ _Kill them all’_ , it said. ‘ _Have no mercy_ ’.

_Did this behavior make him different from a monster at all?_

An image of Adrian’s pleading eyes cut through the raging fog in his brain and Trevor lost it.

He spun on himself, boiling in guilt, anger and disappointment, and smashed the glass of the ossuary containing the vampire skulls with a fist.

Irregular shreds of glass cut through his skin and embedded into his hand and forearm, small droplets of blood immediately staining the displayer and the ground.

His fury all but sated, Trevor retracted only to lash forward again with increasing viciousness.

He was immune to physical pain, driven by the rash desire to rebel against the ties that bound him to be a Belmont.

Never before had his last name felt this heavy, not even when it had condemned him to a life of misery and exile.

He stopped to take a breath when the ossuary was nothing more than a heap of crude cranes and broken wood, and that was when the realization of what he'd done truly hit him.

Disgusted with himself, he took a step backward and rested his back against the heavy bookcase with his family's history.

He allowed his legs to give out and slid to the floor, spent, his heart feeling as if it was ripped in two.

He was alone and nothing was right and Trevor felt small and insignificant as if he was standing again in front of the Belmont mansion, watching it burn.

Not seeing any reason to hold back anymore, he let himself cry.

  


He came back to the castle late in the evening, after trying to fix the mess in The Hold and burying all the vampire skeleton that now didn’t have an ossuary to be displayed on anymore.

He was walking quietly toward his bedroom, his eyes still red and puffy, when he heard light footstep behind his back.

He didn't even get the time to turn. Sypha's shocked gasp halted him in his track.

“Trevor,” she said, her voice sounding an unusual mixture of worry and disbelief.

“What did you do to your hand?”

The hunter hung his head, knowing full well there was no point in hiding his injured limb. He turned to look at her over his shoulder and her eyes went wide and concerned upon finding his face. Trevor could only deduce he looked exactly as he felt - like utter shit.

Sypha walked to him, her hands already outstretched for Trevor, but Adrian chose that moment to step out from the library at the end of the hallway.

“Sypha,” he called, apparently not yet aware of Trevor’s presence.

Trevor’s head turned in his direction as if attracted by a magnet and their eyes met.

Adrian’s face remained impassive, but something passed through his golden irises, subtle, but not enough for Trevor to miss it.

“I am sorry I interrupted you,” the vampire said in a cold voice, his gaze shifting to find Sypha. As if nothing had happened, as if he didn't care.

“I will wait for you in the reading room,” and like that, he turned his back and vanished, not even waiting for Sypha’s response.

Trevor grimaced, clenching his teeth. He wouldn't know what the fuck he had expected - he had messed up everything after all. Of course Adrian wasn't interested in having anything to do with him anymore.

It hurt like a kick in the balls, though. Trevor was so fucking tired of hurting.

He resumed his march to his and Sypha private quarters, rudely kicking the door open.

“Trevor!” he heard the sorceress’ disapproving voice screaming in his direction, but he ignored her.

Obviously, Sypha couldn’t leave it at that and followed him inside the room.

“Trevor, this ridiculous situation can’t go on any longer!” she warned him, her tone annoyed.

The hunter gritted his teeth even tighter, the muscles in his back tense like a bowstring.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he deadpanned, irritated by her sudden intrusion and all but willing to openly acknowledge what was going on. He already had to endure a horrible afternoon submerged in his grimy thoughts, he had definitely gotten enough for one single day.

Differently from any other time, Sypha didn’t desist.

Boldly, she circled around him and caught him from the collar of his shirt, brusquely tugging him down to get his attention.

“You dare imply I am making things up?” she hissed, her blue eyes clouded with quiet fury.

“You know what Trevor Belmont? Enough is enough!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trivia:  
> -Pálinka is a traditional fruit brandy of Central Europe with origins from the Carpathian Basin, known under several names, and invented in the Middle Ages - that is what Wikipedia says. What I can tell you is that for some reason the most famous variety comes from Hungary but apparently in Romania everyone has a culture about it, since it’s the country’s national drink - and they do brew it at home.  
> \- I obviously made up Louis, please don’t blame me. I searched the Castlevania timeline high and low for information about the Belmont family, but apparently between Leon Belmont and Sonia (Trev’s mum), there are 11 generations of nameless Belmonts or something like that. So I thought fuck that, and made up some ancestor from scratch - hi Louis!
> 
> A/N: Well crap. I just realized this one is another long ass chapter, but I didn't feel like splitting it. I figured the angst and Trevor's inner turmoil would come out better this way (tell me if it I was delusional please). 
> 
> This was painful and very difficult to write. The thing with me is, I am not good at emotions. Or better: I am good at reading people and knowing their emotions but I apparently experience those emotions in a different way (my therapist says it's my way to hold it together that sorta...makes me numb to them, but youuuu didn't want to know this.) Anyway! Point is I suck at describing emotional pain. So here you have this.  
> I hope Trevor's conflict comes out clearly anyway. He is a Belmont in love with a vampire. A male vampire. When he is the last of his bloodline and supposed to have children and currently engaged *coff coff*.
> 
> I would be extremely happy if you decided to share with me your thoughts on this chapter after reading. This is the one that makes me insecure the most - next one I am banging again I promise.
> 
> Feedback is welcome as well as opinions and shaenigans and pointing out mistakes I missed because heck it was super long to skim through.
> 
> Thank you a lot for reading! I wish you all a nice day!


	8. Can't fight this feeling anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is mercifully beta'd by lovely sasu--hime.

Sypha forced him backward aggressively, her small hands pushing unexpectedly hard against his chest. Trevor took a step back and tried to make sense of the countless emotions playing on her face, but they were too diluted by blunt aggravation.

The sorceress gave him no time to recoil.

“I tried to be patient, Trevor, I really did. I tried to give you the time you needed to come out with this discourse, but since it appears you have no intention to broach the subject, I’ll do it instead. This is just getting ridiculous!”

Trevor threw her a hard stare but said nothing. A part of him understood why Sypha was pissed and fed up at the whole situation, but he had no idea where this conversation was going. Therefore he kept quiet.

Sypha dragged her fingers through her short ginger curls, probably trying to collect her thoughts and calm down a little. It clearly didn’t work out as good as she expected.

“I don’t give a shit if you’re too scared to deal with your problems, Belmont. When your problems also become mine, I expect you to grow the fuck up and confront me about them,” she said, and at least she wasn’t screaming in his face anymore.

“There is nothing to talk about, Sypha," Trevor stubbornly tried to dodge the conversation one last time, but the poisoned glare he received prompted him to shut the hell up.

“I beg to differ,” the Speaker said, crossing her arms at her chest.

“It’s been almost four days now. Alucard is not eating, you have gone on a self-destructive spree, you both studiously ignore each other and it’s pretty evident we must talk about whatever is going on!”

_ Wait. Adrian was not- what? _

“Do you really think I am stupid, Trevor?" Sypha's tone was insistent and steady but, looking at her now, Trevor could see that she was hurt, and he idly wondered how he could have missed it before. It was as plain as day, a liquid shadow in her normally vibrant eyes.

Taken aback by the sudden realization, Trevor found himself speechless, completely at the mercy of the sorceress’ wrath.

Apparently, Sypha ha already made up her mind regarding Trevor's opinion of her, and she didn't give him a chance to offer a rebuttal.

“Because I grant you, I am really not."

Her voice broke a little, but she proudly maintained eye contact.

Honestly, Trevor didn't need to be told. He had come to know a couple of things about Sypha, and he deeply respected her for her intelligence and her strong disposition. He would never dare to undermine her.

Trevor's prolonged silence seemed to mollify Sypha's indignation slightly, and she huffed quietly through her nose, biting her bottom lip.

She lowered her gaze, closing off from Trevor’s baffled stare, and then she said it.

“I know you don’t love me, Trevor Belmont.”

Her face was pained and her voice small, almost ashamed.

“How could you love me when your heart already belongs to somebody else?”

The question wasn't meant to receive an answer and it wasn't what Trevor expected. Actually, it was as far from what Trevor expected as he could imagine.

Dumbfounded, he sucked in a breath, feeling as if the sorceress had just punched him in the guts.

Then, panic flared like wildfire.

_ Sypha was convinced he was in love with Adrian _ .

He took another step away from her, walking away from her words, trying to keep his raging emotions in check and conceal how much he felt called out by her statement.

“Why do you say that?" he asked, but despite his efforts at feigning indifference, his voice came out strained.

Sypha raised her eyes again, and besides how glossy they were, Trevor was able to spot a glint of pity in their depth.  _ Poor child _ , her gaze was saying.  _ He doesn’t know what he’s doing _ . And that silent assumption also hit a little too close to home for Trevor’s liking.

Feeling uncomfortable, he turned his face to avoid her, pretending to take interest in something outside of the window.

“I have eyes, you know,” Sypha shortly answered his half-assed question, as if no further explanation was required.

“I saw you with Alucard. When he got hurt, you-”

But Trevor didn’t let her talk, anger mounting within him at the vile implication behind her words.

“You know I would have done the same for you!”

Now he was the one screaming himself hoarse and, holy damn, he didn’t know why.

He realized Sypha didn’t expect him to lash out because her shoulders jumped up in surprise when he raised his voice. She immediately lifted both of her hands as if to calm him.

“I know Trevor, I know that!” she confirmed, and there was something in her tone that convinced him she wasn’t lying.

His anger momentarily subsided but he still felt defensive. He took a calming breath and waited for her to speak on, partly dreading what else would come out of her mouth.

“I’ve never seen you as scared as when you thought you were losing him. Not even when you were the one facing death,” the sorceress pointed out gently.

Trevor couldn’t deny he’d been completely terrified, but that didn’t imply he was in love with Adrian -  _ or did it? _

“He was dying Sypha, and he’s supposed to be immortal or something. Let’s just say it took me by surprise, so of course I was scared.”

He conceded the point, taking note of how Sypha’s shoulders relaxed when he finally opened up to dialogue

She smiled at him minutely, as if she seriously appreciated his effort to keep the conversation civil.

“I also panicked,” she confirmed, her gaze turning soft.

“But that’s beside the point. The way you looked at him, the way you touched him, the things you said to him…” she lowered her eyes, looking pensive, but then found the courage to meet Trevor’s gaze dead on and Trevor saw the hurt and the resignation within them.

“I had to see you in a desperate situation to realize how blind I have been,” she concluded, shrugging her shoulders.

Trevor had to look away, not sure about what to say. His mind was working a mile per minute, trying to retrieve his memories of the conceited moments following Adrian’s injury and to grasp his own feelings throughout the whole convalescence period.

“Passion is something wild and untamed, Trevor,” Sypha said, her voice soft.

“It burns like molten steel and twirls like a hurricane, and pulls you and pushes you, bends you to its will. It’s not something you can fake.”

Trevor closed his eyes, finding he agreed with her words to an extent.

“I’ve never seen such a fire in your eyes when you were holding me,” Sypha’s voice had become small and sad. Trevor’s heart hurt at hearing her like this, a woman who normally was such a volcano of enthusiasm and positive energy.

Trevor had tried to love her really hard, and he’d hoped one day to be able of returning her feelings with at least half of the intensity of what she felt for him. But obviously, Sypha had noticed how different their involvement was. She was too smart for her own good.

Trevor genuinely liked her, he really did. And he deeply cared about her and he wanted to keep her. But she wasn’t…

He peered in her direction, noticing how her shoulders were sagged, her face downturned.

He’d never felt any crave, neither for her body nor for her presence. Not the way he had found himself dying to…

He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling stupid and disgraced.

So here it was, the truth said out loud - and what was worse, by somebody else. How in hell had Trevor thought he could hide or deny how he felt, he didn’t know.

There was a long, tensed silence where he realized his heart was slamming crazily against his ribcage and his palms were sweating. Sypha herself seemed lost in her own private musings, the shadow of a sad smile plastered on her face.

“I am really sorry Sypha,” Trevor finally said, still not mustering the courage to seek out her eyes. He was at a loss. Social etiquette and understanding of emotions was notoriously not his forte.

The sorceress snorted softly, the smile on her face growing more genuine.

“Why? Because you don’t love me?” she asked, her tone sounding somewhat lighter, borderline mocking.

“We cannot choose who we fall in love with,” she said matter of factly.

“I cannot exactly be mad at you because you tried, now, can I?”

She didn’t seem furious, not anymore, but Trevor was still angry at himself for blatantly failing her (a _ nd also for falling like an asshole for a person who wasn’t in his league). _

He was surprised when Sypha came standing right in front of him, her blue eyes studying him. She reached out and affectionately cupped his face, forcing his chin upwards with her thumb so that he was standing a little taller.

“There is a just thing I don't understand about this whole situation, Belmont," she said, and Trevor didn't doubt she was sincerely puzzled about something. He could see the curiosity burning within her.

“Why did you choose to be with me, when your feelings are so obviously returned?”

The question left Trevor flabbergasted, oxygen abruptly sucked out of his lungs.

“What?" his voice cracked, but he had come to a point where he was honestly beyond caring.

And Sypha...Sypha actually chuckled, apparently finding his dead-fish face extremely funny.

“Oh, come on Trevor,” she teased him, retracting her hand from his face.

“If there is something you’re not, that is naive…”

Trevor blinked at her, wondering what the hell he had missed in Adrian's behavior that suggested a romantic interest of sort - well, besides the kiss, but Sypha couldn't know about it.

“Alucard is not even trying to be subtle anymore,” the sorceress added amusedly as an afterthought.

_ Did that mean Adrian had been interested but subtle before? _

Probably taking pity on his blatant state of confusion, Sypha decided to explain things more clearly.

“I also have been left heartbroken by unrequited love in the past. Sure, I was not at Adrian's level of dramatic, but let's just say I do know how it feels."

Trevor’s face became greenish pale, then flustered in the span of a second. _Sypha_ _had_ _known_ _what_ _was_ _happening_ _all_ _along_ , and like an idiot he had thought he could solve the situation by simply waiting for the storm to pass.

“Well, fuck."

What else was he supposed to say?

Sypha took a step back, her expression suggesting a part of her found his discomfort entertaining despite the hurt still visible in her eyes.

“Trevor,” she called his name in a soft voice, and Trevor had no choice but to grow a pair and confront her. Their eyes met and Sypha tried her best to smile at him.

“Being humans, we cannot choose who we fall for, but I want you to know we can choose to be happy.”

She paused for a second as if she was weighing her words carefully.

“And there's nothing wrong with that, even if it means acting a little selfish sometimes."

Trevor's mouth was dry. Even as an emotionally constipated caveman, he realized those nudging words were Sypha's way of letting him go. Since Trevor had not been able to, she was claiming responsibility and taking a step back for his sake.

“You will always occupy a very special place in my heart," Sypha continued gently, and it suddenly hit him that there was no way back. What was done was done and Sypha was calling herself out of their relationship.

Trevor’s chest hurt. He’d never doubted Sypha’s feelings for him, and he could only fathom how hard she was suffering at the moment.

It was only his fault.

Sypha took a hold of his hand and squeezed, almost as if she could sense his own self-deprecating thoughts.

“You're a good man, Trevor, and I love both you and Alucard, even if differently. I trust you will find a solution that works for you both."

She squeezed his hand a second time, her eyes full of fondness although she was clearly fighting back tears.

Letting go of him, she took a step back and headed to the door.

“I will be sleeping in the empty room close by the kitchen, if you need me," she informed him, eyes to the floor.

“I already collected all my things.”

Trevor felt like crying too, his hands shaking. Instead, he forced himself to nod in understanding.

After some hesitation, Sypha exited his room and their relationship once and for all. She didn’t turn back.

  
  


Trevor tried not to dwell about it. A dull, unusual kind of ache had set upon his chest, some kind of fatigue nourished by an uncanny sense of loneliness.

He took a bath, feeling a little numb, a little lost. Then he made an effort to treat and bandage the wounds he’d caused to his right forearm.

He didn’t cry.

He could already tell he was going to miss many aspects of his life with Sypha, but Trevor didn’t feel in the position to grieve for the loss. He was solely responsible for their fall out, after all. He was the one entering commitment while apparently being helplessly  _ in love _ with another person.

Grimacing at the word ‘love’, he trailed his fingers through his still moist hair.

Feeling restless, he stood up from the bed, incapable of sitting still.

He paced back and forth into the spacious room, slowly, thoughts about Sypha’s parting words nagging at him.

He sighed, both hands laced in his hair now, elbows pointing at the ceiling.

Adrian had seemed perfectly fine the few times Trevor had met him since abruptly running away after that small kiss. He'd appeared self-assured and unrealistically beautiful as per usual, pretty much indifferent to the outcome of the situation.

However, Sypha had told him the opposite. She had spoken about heartbreak and returned feelings - and what the fuck was that story about not eating, anyway?

Among his diffused sense of guilt for how badly he had failed Sypha, some other feelings were fighting to come through.

Sypha’s words had changed everything, opening a window on Trevor’s emotions that he wasn’t able to shut anymore. Among his unrelenting guilt, Trevor was worried.

He felt like an utter dick for his cowardly, disgusting behavior. He had never wanted to cause harm to the vampire - if anything, the opposite was true. He missed Adrian and the sort of electric energy that buzzed through his body when he was around.

Above all else, Trevor couldn’t stand the exasperated tension between them anymore. He had come to the breaking point.

A part of him hated himself and loathed those unwanted feelings he'd tried to deny and suffocate in any possible way. The rest of him, though, craved for Adrian - and everything about him - with a desperation that was maddening.

Trevor closed his eyes, exhaling softly through his nose. Something in his chest stirred.

Sypha had told him that he had to be the one to take ahold of his destiny, that he was the only person responsible for his happiness... or lack thereof. He didn't recall the last time he'd been genuinely happy or unburdened; as far as he remembered, he had always been called to meet someone else's expectations.

_ His family’s, the people of Wallachia, the church’s, The Speakers’, the prophecy _ . Trevor wasn’t really fit to satisfy any of them. But  _ Trevor Belmont _ was, so he had decided to be Trevor Belmont.

Dragging his feet, he trudged to the window, his soul heavy. Darkness had descended outside, and the night sky was perfectly clear, a plethora of stars shining brightly among the blackness.

The universe kept on running its course, uncaring of Trevor's inner conflict, not giving a damn whether he opted to be a drunken mercenary in love with a vampire or the holy last son of the Belmont clan.

Trevor leaned his back against the thick castle wall in the niche framing the window.

Sypha had called him a good man, but he couldn't bring himself to agree with that. He had lied, he had been selfish, he had caused sorrow to his loved ones. And all of that while trying to adhere to the principles of an ideal version of himself.

So maybe he should just…

Crossing his arms to his chest, he shrugged off his thoughts, emptying his mind. He tried to focus on how he felt, trying to connect to the most irrational part of himself.

Among the many emotions whirling inside him, a single desire stood out, drawing him like the chant of a siren.

Trevor's lashes lowered to half-mast, a soft but determined light glinting in his eyes.

He had to see Adrian.

He had to make this right.

  
  


He barged into Adrian’s room without even knocking. No way in hell he could explain how he knew Adrian was there, but  _ he did _ and he didn’t want to risk being pushed away.

The vampire was sitting on the large windowsill, window wide open, his back to the void. He seemed engrossed in the book he held in his hands, which probably explained why he had paid no mind to Trevor’s approach.

The soft night breeze gently ruffled his long hair, the flames of the candles slowly dancing to the rhythm of the gentle blows.

Trevor knew the candlelight was purely for atmosphere and scenery, because Adrian’s eyes could discern the printed words perfectly even in pitch darkness. The trivial thought didn’t disturb him as it probably should have, and Trevor’s eyes couldn’t help but roam the elegant figure he’d been desiring since their first encounter in the catacombs of Gresit.

Adrian’s attention diverted from the page he was reading only to throw a nasty glance in Trevor’s direction, his expression and his body language stiffening. He was clearly uncomfortable with Trevor's presence in his private quarters, his lips downturned and the lines of his jaw severe, but behind the mask of annoyance the vampire put up, Trevor could see the glimmering hurt in his eyes.

It was as if some incorporeal entity got a grasp on Trevor's heart and suddenly squeezed, knocking all the air out of his lungs.

Every second of silence that passed, with Trevor unmoving in Adrian’s threshold, eyes trying to get a good read of the vampire, Adrian got more and more defensive, to the point Trevor feared he would jump out of the window if it served to avoid him.

Trevor was feeling miserable.

He knew this whole situation was his fault, he agreed he deserved Adrian’s cold treatment and distrust after what happened between them. It was Adrian’s right to be more careful, to keep the distance and never allow Trevor into his space again.

Trevor had rejected him out of nowhere - after days of spurring him on.

_ He had hurt him. _

But even knowing his faults full well, he couldn't help how bad it felt to see the apprehension that replaced the trust in Adrian's eyes, and how he appeared small and uncomfortable, trying to shy away from Trevor's gaze and his presence.

Trevor sucked with words.

He knew that much about himself, and not only because he'd been told a hundred  times over. He had serious problems in opening up and acknowledging his emotions and he was terrified at the idea of being vulnerable.

Trevor was a man of action though, and he had never run away from a confrontation before Adrian. He wasn't going to get away like a coward this time. He wanted to make this right, to let Adrian know he was sorry and that he never meant for their relationship to get to this point. He had to act like the man Sypha thought he was and let Adrian know that he wanted him.

So he briskly walked toward the window, like a man on a mission - like someone with a purpose - eyes focused on Adrian, taking in his reaction.

The vampire straightened his back and tilted backward warily, confusion, anger and fear mixing into his golden eyes, almost as if he thought Trevor was going to attack him. He looked like an abused pet awaiting the next blow.

Fighting against the knot tying his throat, Trevor reached for Adrian's maddeningly beautiful face and tilted his chin up. Without giving him room to dodge or to push him away, he leaned down and kissed him.

He kept the pressure light and his hold slack so that if Adrian really didn't want this, he could break free and kick him out of his life.

The contact was soft and innocent, a gentle pressing of lips against lips. Trevor kept his eyes half-mast, watching Adrian's golden ones open up wide in surprise, his upper lashes long and curved, grazing his eyebrows.

He slowly breathed in through his nose, smelling soap and warmth and Adrian, then interrupted the contact with a delicate kissing sound.

Given as Adrian hadn't moved in his hold, he pressed close again, searing their lips together a second time and kissing him with slightly more purpose. He hoped Adrian could perceive how emotional and apologetic he felt.

After three or four gentle pecks - three or four of Trevor’s silent ‘sorry’ - Adrian’s lashes fluttered closed and he carefully, hesitantly, leaned into the contact.

A wave of warmth and gratefulness washed away any residual doubt or hesitation from Trevor, and he gently opened his mouth to deepen the kiss.

Adrian tensed up minutely when the tip of Trevor's tongue grazed his bottom lip but immediately opened up, his hands finding purchase in Trevor's loose shirt.

Trevor barely had time to taste him, the tantalizing cool warmness of his mouth, the sharpness of his fangs against the side of his tongue, that Adrian tugged him close greedily, not enough focused to tame his superhuman strength.

Trevor ended up in between Adrian’s open thighs, their bodies pressed together and Adrian’s hands sliding sensually behind his neck, embracing him passionately.

He kissed back with hunger and ardor, as if he'd been waiting for this to happen for centuries.

Doing his best to stay in control and play along, Trevor sloppily shifted his limbs to regain his equilibrium, embracing Adrian at his waist and sinking the other hand in unrealistically soft blond hair, allowing the vampire to devour his mouth.

It felt right. 

The way Adrian molded against him, the way they craved for each other. The vampire's body felt perfect in his arms - as if he belonged. It was lean and sturdy, the shell of a sinewy warrior, and its inherent strength - the fact that Adrian could snap Trevor in two with his bare hands if only he wanted only worked as a turn on the hunter.

Trevor leaned back slightly, sighing on Adrian's lips and biting the lower one, bruised and red from the kisses. Adrian made a small sound - a surprised gasp turned into a moan - and allowed Trevor to tilt his head backward and kiss his chin, trail his lips along the line of his jaw and then suck a spot on his neck, lower, right under the sensitive earlobe.

He arched up in Trevor's arms, sliding closer, bringing their pelvis together. The book Adrian had been reading fell out his lap and to the floor with a dull thud, forgotten.

Trevor could feel Adrian’s heartbeat under his lips, mirroring the insane rhythm of his own. As stupid as it might sound, it made him feel cherished and understood.

Adrian’s hand shifted at his nape, grabbing a tuft of Trevor’s hair, his slightly pointed fingernails grazing Trevor’s sensitive skin. Gooseflesh appeared on Trevor’s arms and he didn’t resist when Adrian tugged at his hair, blindly searching for his mouth.

Their lips seared together and Trevor idly wondered if anyone had ever kissed Adrian before, if anyone had ever held him as if he was someone to love and not a monster to be afraid of.

The way the vampire explored his mouth, holding onto Trevor as if he was starved for him, was stirring hot flames of desire in the hunter’s belly.

Feeling bold and slightly daring, Trevor sneaked a hand between their bodies, answering Adrian’s kiss with equal desperation, angling the vampire’s mouth to gain better access and deepen the contact even more.

He explored the solid planes of Adrian’s chest, feeling the tensed muscles ripple under his fingers, then lowered his hand to the vampire’s abdomen, hovering where the almost deadly injury had been. 

Adrian sighed and his hips tilted up minutely, his groin rolling against Trevor’s, tempting him.

Trevor had to take a moment to breathe and he leaned his forehead against Adrian's, eyes still closed, his body tingling where the vampire was touching him.

When he gained enough control to dare opening his lids, he found two exotic golden pools regarding him, pupils blown wide. 

He sighed directly on Adrian’s mouth, taking in the endearing pink tone of his cheekbones and the sensual red-shade of his shiny lips.

He had never desired anyone the way he yearned for Adrian. In a sense, it was scary, because Trevor couldn't be sure of the role Adrian's vampiric nature played in all of this. Also, willing to admit this or not, Adrian got Trevor in the palm of his hand. Now that Trevor had the vampire in his arms as a lover - finally, after all that frustration and longing - he couldn't even fathom to let him go.

Trevor's breath hitched when he felt Adrian's cool hand touching his stomach, the caresses light and explorative. He searched for his eyes and found curiosity and desire in them, as well as a bit of hunger, and he couldn't resist bowing his head and stealing a kiss from those full lips.

The kiss stole away Trevor's breath as well as his thoughts and he found himself groaning almost ferally in Adrian's mouth, his hips unconsciously rocking, seeking for more contact.

Of course, he'd been embarrassingly turned on since the very moment Adrian had aggressively claimed ownership of his mouth, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold back, especially because - thanks to all the dreams he enjoyed in the last year or so - his body was coiled in anticipation. 

He didn't want to give Adrian the wrong impression - Trevor wanted him, lusted after his body, but he didn't come to him for that reason. Trevor had come to Adrian because he wanted to make things right between them, because he wanted to be with him.

Adrian's hands found their way under Trevor's shirt, delicately grazing the skin of his abdomen, and Trevor lost it. Tugging at Adrian's long hair aggressively he forced him to tilt his head backward. Adrian whimpered - but not in a pained way - and Trevor laced his lips to the unmarred whiteness of Adrian's neck and bit down. The irony of a Belmont mauling the neck of a vampire wasn't lost to him, but it only brought a mischievous smile on his lips.

Adrian seemed to really enjoy the roughness, his hips jolting up and his nails scratching at Trevor's skin. His thighs constricted around Trevor's hips, squeezing the hunter unrealistically close.

Still sucking the pale skin, Trevor dared trail his hand lower, finding the stiffening bulge in Adrian's tight pants and tentatively caressing it with his thumb.

The vampire moaned and squirmed in his arms, trying to get free of Trevor’s hold, bucking his hips and sensually rubbing against Trevor.

Trevor held him, enjoying the tantalizing way their trapped erections grazed together, then lifted his face and allowed Adrian to his mouth, meeting him halfway.

The vampire started tugging at Trevor’s shirt as if he wanted to rip it apart, so the hunter reached for the hem and lifted it up, breaking the kiss long enough to remove it.

He was already breaking a sweat, his burning hot skin only emphasizing the contrast with Adrian's cool temperature. It was a weird sensation - the vampire wasn't exactly cold, more like a normal person who had just dipped in cold water - and Trevor knew he warmed up like a regular human being when he was feeding or had just fed. No way in hell could he forget holding him as he took his blood, after all.

Dazedly gazing downward, Trevor noticed how the contrast between them was visual as well as tactile. Adrian's pale hands appeared even more white against his slightly tan skin, and they were incredibly smooth and unblemished to belong to a skilled swordsman.

Mouth watering at the idea of putting his own hands on the whiteness of Adrian’s skin, he reached for the vampire's blouse and removed it, Adrian's hair coming out ruffled and wild because of his impatience.

The vampire didn’t give him time to properly admire him, lacing his mouth to one of Trevor’s dusky nipples as soon as he was freed from the hindrance of his upper garment.

Trevor couldn't stifle a moan, his hand instinctively finding purchase in the fascinating softness of blond hair, debating whether he should hold Adrian closer or yank his face away from his chest.

For a while he allowed Adrian's explorative kisses and his caresses, enjoying the soft wetness of his mouth on the skin and the curious tenderness of his fingers. Then he gently tilted his head backward and bowed for a kiss, his own hand going impatiently for the biggest prize.

He stroked Adrian's erection from above the material of his pants, satisfaction boiling his blood at every excited sound Adrian made in his mouth.

Fingertips reverently dipping in every ridge of Trevor's abdomen, the vampire didn't shy away, keeping Trevor as close as possible to increase the blissful friction between them.

 

It took Trevor a superhuman effort to break the stream of passionate kisses and step back, freeing himself from the sweet hold of Adrian's thighs.

He had both his hands on the belts at the vampire's waist in a second, before Adrian even got time to protest - although judging from the mesmerized gaze the vampire was giving him, he was not going to anyway.

With shaky, impatient hands, Trevor unbuckled the leather and unbuttoned the pants, swiftly kneeling between Adrian's legs to unlace his boots. He tore the boots off and tugged at the material of Adrian's trousers with such raw strength that the vampire had to grip the windowsill or Trevor would have dragged him down on the floor together with them. 

The tight fabric slid over Adrian's legs with some resistance, but Trevor was losing his patience, too hungry for him, and his open mouth traced the naked skin as soon as it was exposed.

Only when he finally had Adrian’s legs bare, the impossibly tight pants forgotten on the floor, did Trevor raise his eyes searching for the vampire’s.

Adrian was completely naked - Trevor wouldn't know what the dhampir had against undergarments, but at the moment he was appreciating his choice of going commando - half perched on the windowsill while ridiculously gripping the frame of the window. Trevor would have laughed at the absurdity of the scene if his mouth wasn't that dry.

Adrian was absolutely gorgeous.

An anatomically perfect youth sculpted in white marble, endless white legs, smooth and hairless like the rest of him, a defined and tapered torso, unblemished with the exception of the scar his father has given him and, lower on his belly, the new one, courtesy of Van Helsing's dagger.

He was looking at Trevor with some anticipation, his golden eyes warm and glimmering, his lips parted.

Trevor stood up, palms running up Adrian's svelte thighs, desire burning hot in his veins. He kissed him and Adrian let go of the window to cling onto his shoulders, legs embracing Trevor almost as if he was afraid he would run.

He rocked his hips against Trevor's, his erection rubbing on the hunter's pants and his abdomen, tip growing sticky with precum.

He didn't seem uncomfortable about being naked and vulnerable in Trevor's arms, and why should he? He was downright perfection.

Trevor hugged him close, reducing the space between them to nothing and running his hands lovingly down his back and to his ass, grabbing a handful of toned cheeks.

Adrian moaned into his mouth and sneaked a hand between them. They were pressed together so tight that Trevor had to make room for it.

The hand tugged at the strings of his pants until they came loose, then slid inside the fabric and his undergarments, tentatively caressing Trevor's coarse pubes.

Liking where this was going, Trevor stroked down Adrian's arm and circled his wrist encouragingly, which gave Adrian the necessary boldness to grip the base of Trevor's erection and start stroking him.

The appreciative groan coming from Trevor’s throat had Adrian becoming unexpectedly daring and tugging the residual clothing down to expose his cock. 

The vampire broke the kiss to gaze downward. Trevor blushed slightly at the sight of their erected dicks coming together, but he was no maiden and he knew how to make this good.

He was probably no match for Adrian's physical beauty, but he could very well compensate that with plenty of experience in the field, coming from years of seeking comfort in another warm body. 

Gently, he took a hold of both their erections, keeping them in contact and stroking both of them with a single hand.

Adrian sighed a small  _ ‘oh' _ , almost as if the pleasure had taken him by surprise, and his enraptured expression brought an affectionate smile on Trevor's lips. He kissed the vampire's cheek fondly, letting Adrian tug his hair and scratch his shoulders, his hips still rocking against Trevor's.

“Uh- Trevor,” the vampire huffed, arching in his arms like a goddamn incubus. The way Adrian said his name, breathy and lost in pleasure, had a shiver running down Trevor’s spine.

“Bedside table.”

Trevor was kind of losing it, his ability to focus on something that wasn't Adrian at an all-time low, but he turned his head slightly to take a look in the bed's direction. Peering through blond strands he spotted a small, dark bottle on Adrian's drawer, and his brain had half an idea of what it could serve for. 

There was no way he would leave Adrian alone for more than a second in order to retrieve that, though.

“Hold on,” he whispered, acting on sheer instinct, his brain clouded with lust.

Adrian licked a path along his jawline and Trevor just embraced him, one harm at Adrian’s lower back and one hand grabbing his ass.

He lifted the vampire up unceremoniously, almost losing his balance as Adrian suddenly leaned on him, taken aback by the manhandling. Trevor stumbled and had to fight not to fall on his ass, his trousers halfway down his thighs sure as hell not helping the purpose.

When he managed to find some stability, Adrian’s legs squeezing his waist like a vice, the vampire actually started laughing, eyes closed and both his arms thrown behind Trevor’s neck. The clear, happy sound unleashed a swarm of butterflies in Trevor’s belly, his lips curving up instinctively as he tried his best not to crack up himself. He was a man on a mission and he had to bring both Adrian and himself on the other side of the room without anybody dying.

He hoisted Adrian higher in his arms, the vampire moaning from the friction, and kissed his cheek, putting one foot in front of the other carefully as he headed for the bedside table.

Adrian’s wet kisses along his neck were not favoring his concentration, but Trevor would rather die than complain.

They miraculously managed to make it to the drawer without tumbling and Trevor slammed Adrian against the closest wall, molding their mouths together in a bruising kiss.

“Gotta let you go,” he murmured in Adrian’s mouth, hands running along his smooth thighs.

“Don’t fall, okay?”

The vampire slowly nodded, looking dazed and happy, and reluctantly let go of Trevor, placing his palms against the wall.

There was a small tug, almost a suction, and with unbidden stupor Trevor realized Adrian had just glued himself to the wall with his vampiric superpowers. 

_ Well, that was unexpected. Hot, but unexpected. _

“Cool,” he commented, kissing him one last time before letting go of him and tilting to the side to retrieve the innocuous bottle on the bedside table.

“Poppy seed oil?” he questioned after reading the label.

“That's fancy...”

Adrian arched an eyebrow, looking at him as if he was considering biting his head off.

“It's good for my hair,” he explained defensively, curling a blond lock around his fingers.

Trevor snorted the inevitable laugh in Adrian's collarbone.

“Let's find out if its good for our dicks too,” he teased shamelessly, kissing a spot under the vampire's ear.

“Crude," Adrian admonished him, but he was actually chuckling.

The vampire had let go of the wall, but it was pretty obvious he was still holding himself up with his powers, since Trevor couldn’t feel his weight on himself anymore.

Trevor uncorked the fancy oil and coated his hands with it, putting it back in place and reaching between them to lube up their erections. 

The friction immediately became smoother and extremely pleasant. Trevor leaned a forearm on the wall beside Adrian's head to get some leverage, rocking between the vampire's legs and lifting him up against the wall.

He shifted his teasing touches lower, tracing a path along the junction of Adrian's thighs and his pubes, reaching behind his crotch. He played a little with the sensitive skin of that area, earning a pleased grunt from the man in his arms, then pushed his fingers over the hairless perineum, circling Adrian's hole tentatively.

He wasn't too sure about how to proceed, if the vampire would even allow being touched in such a private place. In Trevor's secret fantasies this was how things usually went - with Adrian wanting this greedily, exactly like Trevor did.

However, in real life…

“Will you get on with it?” Adrian slurred, tugging at Trevor’s hair.

Trevor blinked the surprise away at record speed. He sure as fuck wasn’t going to have the vampire give permission again.

Applying a small pressure he swiftly pushed a finger inside, Adrian humming and tilting his head to the side in response. 

Trevor prodded experimentally with his finger and gently turned it, trying to catch any trace of discomfort on his partner’s face.

“This good?” he murmured, leaving a praising kiss on the pale perfection of Adrian’s shoulder.

The vampire threw him an encouraging glance, but then hung his head so that his hair concealed his expression.

“Done this to myself,” he half-sighed half-moaned, and Trevor stilled for a second at the admission.

_ Did that mean Trevor was the first? _

Adrian squirmed in his arms and Trevor recoiled, resuming the movements of his finger and carefully adding in a second one.

He didn't want to dwell on the matter, at the moment. He only wanted to be with Adrian and make him feel really good.

The vampire responded well to Trevor’s probing touches, keeping his face obscured but making soft, appreciative noises and rocking on Trevor’s fingers.

Quickly becoming impatient, Trevor retracted them and got a grip on his leaking erection, rubbing around oil and precome to make sure it was perfectly sleek.

He eagerly pressed the tip against Adrian’s hole, applying a gentle pressure, and Adrian embraced him at his shoulders, hiding his face in the crook of Trevor’s neck.

The ring of muscles didn’t give and Trevor knew better than to force it. He touched Adrian’s thighs in a loving caress - Jesus, he loved them - and lowered the vampire’s legs thus he could stand on his feet.

Adrian took a curious peek at him, his cheeks endearingly flushed in pink, and Trevor moved the blond strands away from his face with gentle hands. He embraced him, kissing him hard and quick, then spun him around so that he was facing the wall.

Adrian caught on with his intentions, and when Trevor placed a hot palm on his lower back he leaned slightly forward with his upper body.

Gripping a hip loosely, Trevor positioned himself again and pushed forward. In this new position Adrian's body accepted him easily and Trevor bottomed out in a smooth thrust. 

Adrian hummed softly but Trevor was left breathless, looking down in disbelief at Adrian's perfectly round ass cheeks -  _ they had a perfect golden ratio, holy damn  _ \- where they were joined. He couldn’t help the muffled imprecation that left his mouth.

“Damn,” he huffed, the delicious pressure enveloping his dick almost killing him. “You’re so beautiful. So fucking tight...”

Adrian moaned softly at his praise, rocking his hips minutely, tempting him.

Trevor ran a hand up that marvelous white back, his fingers following the profile of the spine. He collected Adrian's luscious tresses in his palm and tugged at them gently but decisively, forcing him to arch his back and tilt his head backward.

Knees feeling weak upon seeing the dazed expression on Adrian’s face, Trevor pushed his hips forward and bowed to nuzzle the curve of Adrian’s neck and his exposed cheekbone.

“God, I’ve been wanting you for so long,” he confessed in a whisper, pressing a kiss at Adrian’s jawline.

Adrian growled - no joke - and pushed his ass backward against Trevor.

“I’ve always been yours,” he murmured. 

And that was it.

For all the sex he'd had, Trevor had never made love before, so he didn't know what to expect. All he could do was worship Adrian's body with his mouth and his fingers as they moved together, the muscles of the vampire shifting and rippling when he rolled his hips or pushed backward, meeting Trevor's thrusts as if he was born for it. 

Their mouths found each other above Adrian's shoulder, Trevor embracing him, keeping him close, eagerly eating each one of Adrian’s sighs and moans. 

Fuck, his moans were something otherworldly. Not loud per se but keening, possessive, breathless.

Trevor slid one of his hands over Adrian’s chest, fingers following the raised path of his long scar, then reached down to stroke him, giving him additional pleasure.

The position they were in was comfortable and exciting, bringing perverse satisfaction to Trevor’s more domineering side, but the Belmont soon enough found himself desperate to see Adrian’s face.

Fighting against the incoming pleasure, he distanced his mouth from the vampire’s abused nape, his warm breath on the wet patch of skin making Adrian’s small hairs stand.

The vampire made a displeased sound of protest when Trevor shifted back and released his body, unconsciously leaning back to regain skin-on-skin contact.

The smile it brought to Trevor’s lips lingered as the hunter tugged him at his waist and quite gently - considering the aroused state he was in - pushed him to lay on the bed.

Adrian gracefully fell with his back to the mattress, immediately raising on his elbows to seek Trevor's eyes.

The glimpse of warm gold behind Adrian's disheveled locks was a pang to Trevor's chest, but a pleasant, welcomed one.

Adrian was something -  _ Adrian was everything _ \- and Trevor couldn’t keep his hands off him anymore.

He was so inhumanly stunning that it was impossible to forget his vampiric nature. The pearly white fangs, slightly visible between Adrian’s parted lips, would have clarified what he was even to a fool.

However, there was nothing of him Trevor found repulsive or scary as he was supposed to - pretty much the opposite, actually. 

Besides the vampire’s undeniable physical attractiveness, Trevor did honestly like him. All of him. Trevor felt him close to his soul.

He knelt on the bed between Adrian's parted thighs, hands running up the endless legs - the pale skin smooth in its perfection like in his many dreams. He started at the ankle and run up lean calves, bent knees (one was promptly kissed), toned thighs. 

He stopped his hands at Adrian's waist, sliding his palms on the small of his back, and Adrian arched up in his hold, fingers gripping the sheets. 

Trevor kissed and licked the chiseled skin of his lower abdomen, very aware of Adrian's sleek, proud erection barely centimeters from his face.

He eyed the new scar marring Adrian’s skin - it had healed nicely, though it retained a weird purplish shade that would probably never fade. He kissed it reverently, laving at it with his tongue. It had almost taken Adrian from him. Trevor would never forget.

Adrian’s hands found purchase in Trevor’s hair and tugged, and Trevor let himself be dragged up for a kiss. 

There was something absolutely mindblowing in the stark contrast between Adrian’s soft, sensual lips and the sharp edges of his fangs. 

The kiss was passionate but slow and gentle, stirring the embers of Trevor’s desire.

Shifting minutely, he better positioned between the vampire’s thighs. Adrian’s legs rose up and embraced him, his hips tilting invitingly to ease penetration.

Slowly pushing in, Trevor hungrily admired the way Adrian’s mouth fell open and his lashes fluttered closed as he took him in.

“So unfair,” he whispered, his hands shifting against the mattress until he found Adrian’s. He laced their fingers together and raised their joined hands to the sides of the vampire’s face, pinning him to the bed with his weight.

Adrian was the most fascinating paradox Trevor had ever came across. He was a predator on top of the food chain, ridiculously strong and equipped to kill… and yet here he was, mellowly laying under Trevor, soft and willing as they made love.

The golden eyes full of want raised to search for Trevor’s and the hunter leaned down, not kissing him but only grazing their lips and their noses together as he started rocking his hips. 

The thrusts were decidedly slower now, but with a purpose. Trevor took advantage of his in-charge position to grow accustomed to Adrian’s body, watching his reactions closely to find out what felt good to him.

The vampire arched up and threw his head back when Trevor started insisting on a certain angle, his breath becoming ragged. Trevor kissed him, wet and sloppy, Adrian’s legs squeezing him, his muscles starting to tremble.

He pressed his weight on his arms, putting some distance between their bodies so that he could see all of Adrian from above - such a fucking dream he was, with all that blond hair splayed out on the sheets and his gorgeous features distorted in pleasure.

“Adrian,” it was a small, subconscious breath of air and Trevor would have never hoped to be heard, but Adrian did.

Liquid pools of gold opened up searching for Trevor, and Trevor’s world crumbled.

Adrian sobbed and came with no forewarning whatsoever. Had Trevor not already been so gone, it would have startled him - Adrian’s cock wasn’t even being touched. 

He squeezed Trevor so tightly as he came, arching up and palpitating under him, that Trevor almost choked

Trevor’s arms gave out and he lowered himself on his lover’s straining body, his own orgasm triggered by the powerful mix of visual, emotional and physical stimuli. He hid his face in Adrian’s hair as the orgasm hit him, moaning when he would have normally cursed, his hips rocking uncoordinatedly as he rode the high.

Ears ringing in the aftermath, he pressed closed his unexpectedly watery eyes. 

He felt the alluring threat of Adrian’s fangs graze the curve of his shoulder, but only his lips seared the contact.

It took a while for their ragged breaths to calm down, Trevor’s heart still thundering in his chest. 

He rose from Adrian’s body as soon as he felt a semblance of control over himself, unsheathing his spent cock with as much gentleness as he could muster. 

The last time he’d come inside someone he had been fourteen and inexperienced, so he didn’t know what to think about that.

He laid down in bed beside Adrian, facing him.

The vampire kept his eyes closed, face relaxed and body perfectly still.

Feeling shy for whatever reason - they just had sex, for fuck’s sake -, Trevor reached out and tangled his fingers in Adrian’s soft locks.

With a soft sigh, the vampire stirred, turning on his side with casual grace, mirroring Trevor’s own position. 

They stared at each other with open interest, as if they were meeting for the first time. In a sense they were, since it was the first time they laid together bare, all their defenses lowered.

“Do you have something to say?" Adrian's voice was a bit rough but perfectly clear.

Trevor blinked slowly, committing the glaring vulnerability in Adrian’s eyes to his memory.

“No,” he said, fingers combing through golden tresses. He had no doubts. No regrets. No changes of heart whatsoever.

Adrian licked his lips, pondering his answer.

“Can I speak instead?”

Adrian’s sudden insecurity brought a smile on Trevor’s lips. So much for being an almighty creature.

“Sure.”

The vampire averted his gaze and fidgeted, pausing. When he found the confidence he was searching for, he raised his eyes again, almost daring Trevor.

“Stay,” he said.

_ Keep me. Don’t leave me alone again.  _ Trevor heard all of that.

The corner of his lips curved up a bit more and he sighed. As if he could manage to leave Adrian behind after all of that. The vampire definitely overestimated him.

“I wanna do that,” he admitted softly, warmness spreading in his chest.

“Even though I am under the impression you'll regret this," he joked.

In response, Adrian punched his shoulder none too gently.

“Ouch,” Trevor complained dramatically, but Adrian smiled a little soft smile and Trevor’s heart melted. 

Looking at him with adoration, the vampire shifted close with that sinfully perfect body of his and nestled himself in Trevor’s arms.

Trevor held him, his hands exploring and cherishing and cuddling without his conscious permission.

He tilted his head to the side when Adrian nuzzled his neck, making room for him and eagerly anticipating the touch of fangs.

“You can bite me if you want. I already gave permission,” he murmured, his voice dropping low.

Adrian took in a deep breath, making a soft, delighted sound.

Trevor was probably the worst Belmont of all Belmonts and a failure to mankind as a whole.

But nearly ten years after his family was slaughtered and his house burnt to the ground, he felt at home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... hello everyone!  
> It seems incredible that this story is already over. I hope this long, final chapter managed to satisfy all your cravings!
> 
> If you followed the story up till here, thank you. Your support is super appreciated and I genuinely hope you enjoyed the ride!
> 
> Also, leave a small comment down below if you feel like it, so I can personally say hi! I am really curious to know whether this is the ending you expected... or maybe not ;)
> 
> Personally, writing this one was a super interesting experience.
> 
> In case you are interested, the title of this chapter goes after a famous song of the REO Speedwagon, which has an incredibly beautiful lyric (and cheesy music, lol). So if you wanna see some embarrassing 80's haircuts, go check it!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I am not in my best mindset while posting this, cuz life is being a nasty bitch lately - pardon my language.
> 
> I started this story at the beginning of the month because I wanted to explore Trevor's character a little more, taking advantage of all those interesting hints canon gave us. It's sort of an introspective, angsty work about people's expectations and I am honestly really struggling with the issue. Obviously, the fact that life has been a nightmare lately is not really helping.
> 
> 80% of the story is written already - only to revise - and I have the rest outlined.  
> Posting this, I hope to collect enough energy to finish this project, because I really liked the idea behind it.
> 
> If you read this and the story left you something, please leave a smol comment for a battling writer.  
> Feedback is super appreciated.
> 
> Trivia:  
> \- If you read/write in this fandom you probably already know there are many gaps in the original story which we get to fill with something that is basically a headcanon. In this case, like in my previous story, I kept the location of the Belmont Hold (and the Castle) closeby Sinaia, a medieval city that actually has a fortress and it’s close enough to the Real Dracula’s Castle in Transilvania.  
> \- Ploieşti is actually a real romanian city a day of walking from Sinaia.  
> -In Cartomancy, the Two of Spades evokes hesitation through the difficulty to choose. It represents the duality of vice and virtue. It can push the consultant to feel lost, far from the path he/she deserves. Sometimes associated with moral weakness, it shows a situation that does not evolve and it invites the consultant to make a choice.  
> \- Also, and it’s funny how I discovered it later, “Two of Spades” is a song of one of my favourite folk-metal bands Ensiferum, which I OBVIOUSLY highly recommend. It fits the spirit of our early Trevor just right!


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